Good foundations New horizons Andrea Hobbs Freelance consultant

Why things need to change Long held aspiration and aim to become a registered charity and gain independence NYPACT Network has grown significantly > almost 2000 people on our contacts list. Structure that can manage our business properly and Maintain our contract funding – and attract new funders in the future. At the moment and for the immediate future, NYPACT is hosted by Community First Yorkshire and as such sits under the governance of the Community First Yorkshire Board. Long held aspiration and desire for the parent carer forum to be independent and to be an organisation in its own right... BUT we need people around our table to help us to achieve this. We need YOUR help as parent carers and people who are passionate supporters of parent carers to be involved. Todays presentation is about telling you how far we have got in laying down good foundations for this aspiration to become a reality. And how we are clarifying what NYPACT is here for and what we want to do in the future. Our income level year on year if CFY is successful in winning the NYCC contract and the DfE funding continues, is high enough to indicate that we can register as a charity by law – e.g. Over £5000 We cannot apply for funding from some larger funders if we are independent and we are not a charity Whilst we want to maintain the local authority and DfE funded contracts, not having other funders means our activity is not as flexible as it could be e.g. We have to deliver the local authority and DfE funding agreements. We want to be a vibrant and all inclusive network and have a clear purpose and role that is understood by all our members. We want to be even more representational than we are now of parent carer views To achieve all of this we want to make sure our foundations are strong and that means having clear aims and being very clear about the difference we are wanting to make to parent carers – and to find new ways to involve people effectively at lots of different levels that fits with their available time and skills and makes NYPACT a vibrant and active network.

New mission and purpose of NYPACT To listen and respond to the voice of family parent carers and carers of children with SEND across North Yorkshire by: coordinating information enabling mutual support developing and facilitating co-operative and influential partnerships, ....with the aim of improving support to families. We passionately believe in helping families to live their lives in the way they want to live them. The NYPACT Shadow Board have been working together with myself over the last 8 months to begin the process of reviewing our purpose and aims and put together a work programme and development plan that begins to lay these foundations. The core purpose of NYPACT has always been to act as the Parent Carer Forum for North Yorkshire – which is similar to other parent carer forums in other areas of the country. Some are independent and others are hosted by larger organisations as we are. There is also a national structure of parent carer forums and a regional Y&H group that NYPACT belongs to. Through this work it has become very clear that NYPACT is NOT a lobbying group or a campaign group. NYPACT IS a group of people coming together who really want to have a positive influence on the support and services that are available to families with a child or children with SEND. Our core activity is the provision and circulation of information and connecting people to other people who can help. Central to what NYPACT stands for is working in partnership with parents, carers and all agencies, statutory and voluntary, to improve things in the long-run. Everything that NYPACT does is geared towards our mission and the words on the slide are the way in which we have chosen to describe what we feel NYPACT is here to do. We do not seek to support parent carers in the same direct way as local parent support groups – but we do want to have a coordinating role and be a connector and facilitator of bringing everyone together – so that we can all benefit from the shared knowledge and experience of being a parent of a child with SEND.

Proposed new structure? NYPACT network members Free of charge NYPACT future charity members Coming soon....2020 ! Locality Link volunteers Parent Expert volunteers NYPACT Shadow Board of Trustees Host/Hostess volunteers The existing committee will be replaced by a Shadow Board of Trustees and we are actively recruiting to these roles now. NYPACT will spend the next year to 18 months developing our capacity under this new proposed structure to become a registered charity using a structure called a Charitable Incorporated Organisation or CIO – which means it is a charity and a company limited by guarantee. We really need new people to take the new structure forward and we need specific skills in leadership, financial management, communications and marketing and strategic and partnership thinking to help us to achieve our aspiration. All our network members are invited to think about how they could be more involved, beyond receiving the information we send out. Network membership will remain open and free of charge.They will continue to receive all of the information and services for free. They will still be invited to take part in all consultations and events The new volunteer roles we are creating are aimed at involving as many parent carers as possible at a level they can personally manage. Locality Link volunteers will support our new aims and objectives – they will be our listening ears on the ground at a local level, picking up and feeding in information as well as acting as local signposts for other or new parents. This needs a reasonable level of committment and is a way of getting quite significantly involved without being a trustee. They are likely to be people who have a good local network, great contacts and like talking to people. Parent Experts are volunteers who have built up considerable expertise in one area due to their own research or personal experience with their child – and they feel able to pass this knowledge and information on to other parents. This is a light touch involvement and is only provided remotely (email or social media contact) so can be done largely from home – with suggested attendance at 2 network meetings each year. Host/hostess volunteers are very light touch involvement and will basically be a bank of people in a local area that can be called on to help – examples of what they might do: help facilitate an event (tea and coffee making), do some local fund-raising (coffee mornings or raffles to raise funds for NYPACT), support the Locality Links to facilitate participation in a consultation or NYPACT survey.

Proposed new aims To ensure that decisions made by statutory and other partners that impact families with SEND are influenced authentically by the voice of parent carers and their families. To empower parents and carers to be able to confidently self-represent and make informed choices and decisions about their family when navigating their way through services and support. To assist with the shaping of services that reflect the real issues and needs of families with SEND through co-production, clear communication and strong partnership relationships. To promote and facilitate a culture of understanding between parent carers and all our partners across North Yorkshire.

How you can help We would like NYPACT to be able to properly represent ALL parent carer views from across the County through our network and charity membership We would like the NYPACT Board to include a representative from each of the local independent organised parent support groups as well as people with specialist skills e.g. Finance, business and project management We would like individual parent carers to consider how they can join in – and find a ‘best fit’ for them and the time they have available More information about all of the volunteer roles and charity membership is available at the usual NYPACT contacts numbers and email. In order to make sure that NYPACT is a safe and quality organisation for families to approach and use: All trustees will be required to provide at least 2 referees, complete an application form, probably be DBS checked and sign a Trustee declaration All volunteers will be required to provide at least 2 referees. All Locality Link volunteers will be required to undertake a short training course. Some volunteer roles may require DBS checks but not all will. All volunteers will be strongly requested to become fully signed up members of the charity in order to ensure that they are fully supportive of the NYPACT aims and objectives. This is an exciting time and we want to make this time of change a success by leaving space for innovation and suggestion.