At our Parents' Conference, we were pleased to welcome the Leader of Enfield Council, Councillor Nesil Caliskan, who gave us an update on the proposed budget for Enfield including funding for services relating to Special Educational Needs and Disabilities. You can see her presentation here. Parents and carers told Cllr Caliskan about their experiences, some of the challenges they faced and the impact of cuts to funding.

Following these discussions, Our Voice continued the conversation by sending an open letter to Councillor Nesil Caliskan, the Leader of Enfield Council, giving our views (and those of our members) on the critical importance of avoiding any further cuts to SEND funding. This open letter was referred to at the Council budget meeting (where two members of the Our Voice team were in attendance to hear the discussions). We are pleased that Cllr Caliskan has now publicly stated her commitment to avoiding any further cuts to children’s services or adult social care. You can read the letter: Here 

The third annual Our Voice 'Meet the Service Head's Parents' Conference took place on 5th and 6th February 2019. 

The presentations from the event are attached below: 

Service Heads updates

Presentation from Positive Behaviour Support Workshop

Presentation from Speech and Language workshop

Presentation on budget and SEND funding from Cllr Nesil Caliskan 

We are taking the last few bookings for the Our Voice Parents' Conference which takes place this coming Tuesday and Wednesday (5th and 6th February). Make sure you have booked to secure your place: 

Day 1 booking and Day 2 booking. 

We have a busy and exciting agenda planned for each of the two days - see full details here: 

5th February agenda and 6th February agenda. 

Booking has just opened for the Our Voice Parents' Conference. 

We have an exciting programme of events planned, with updates from key figures at the Enfield Local Authority, a Q&A session, workshops, and one-to-one appointments with LA professionals, and a discussion about SEND Funding with the leader of Enfield Council. 

For more information including the full agenda and details of workshops and one-to-one sessions, please see our information brochure. Please book day 1 (5th February) here and day 2 (6th February) here. 

We are busy planning our third annual Parents' Conference, which will be taking place on 5th and 6th February 2019, and booking will be opening soon.

The conference includes an opportunity to hear from the Heads of the different services supporting SEND issues and join a Q&A session, a chance to book 1:1 sessions to discuss specific issues and concerns relating to your child and a choice of different workshops.

For the workshop sessions, we are planning to run four different workshops (two choices for each of the two time-slots) each of which will last an hour (including time for discussion). We want to make sure that these workshops are useful for as many of our members as possible, and we would therefore like your input. Please go to our survey here and select any of the workshop sessions that you think would be useful for you, and add any topics that we have not included but which you would like to see.

For more information about the Parents' Conference see our Events page and our flyer.

We are busy planning our next for 5th and 6th February 2019 - make sure you save the date for this important event. For more information see our flyer.

More details to follow soon 

The Autumn 2018 edition of the Our Voice newsletter has now been published: 

/downloads/Our_Voice_Autumn_2018.pdf

The transfer to Secondary school can be a worrying time for parents and children. 

The Local Authority has produced a guidance pack on the transfer process for families of children with SEND which is attached here along with a timeline of the process and information about open evenings.  

We are busy preparing for our Summer birthday party taking place on 15th July - please make sure that you pre-book to secure your place. 

Please join us for the Our Voice Summer birthday party to celebrate all our wonderful children! 

Sunday 15th July

2.30 to 4.30 pm

Russet House School, Autumn Close, Enfield, EN1 4JA

Featuring: a fabulous magic show by Mr Marvel, a bouncy castle with slide, soft play, sensory room, playground, party food and cake, and party bags for the children. 

The event is free but places are limited so please pre-book your place - tel 07516 662315 or email on info@ourvoiceenfield.org.uk

For more details see the attached flyer. 

A special thank you to our generous sponsors, A and R Design. 

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