What Is Parent Partnership

The SEN & Disability Act 2001 established a statutory duty for Local Education Authorities (LEA) to make arrangements for parent partnership services from January 2002 and the SEN Code of Practice 2001 provides national minimum standards for those services.

Hillingdon Parent Partnership is funded by the LEA to be an arms length service and offers parents/carers a free and confidential service.

The Service aims to ensure that parents/carers are able to play an informed part in any decisions about the educational provision made to meet their your child's special educational needs and to build partnerships between parents/carers, the LEA and schools.

 
 
The Parent Partnership Service offers:
• a confidential Helpline for parents/carers
• verbal and written information

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help to complete forms and to understand complex documents and reports
• information sessions and conferences for parents/carers' groups
• mediation
• training for school and LEA staff'
• advice on rights and responsibilities
• support at meetings
• support through the statutory assessment process (statementing)
• access to Independent Parental Supporters
• Positive about Parenting groups running regularly in local schools'
• Information about Hillingdon's procedures for the identification and assessment of SEN
• Parent/carer support groups
• support through exclusion for parents/carers of children with SEN
• where appropriate referral on to statutory or voluntary organisations working with relevant agencies to support parents/carers who have difficulty accessing services, perhaps because English is an additional language, because of their culture, or because they have learning difficulties themselves
A large part of Parent Partnership's function is to build and improve partnerships between parents/carers, schools, the LEA, voluntary organisations and parents/carers' groups. PP also provides training and information workshops to raise awareness of the issues faced by parents/carers/carers of children with SEN and contributes to the training of LEA and school staff.
Parent Partnership works closely with the LEA to ensure that systems used are as parent-friendly as possible.
Hillingdon Parent Partnership receives thousands of calls annually. These calls mainly come from parents/carers or other family members, and cover a wide range of issues from concerns about a child's progress at school to advice about 24 hour provision. Our supportive staff provide advice and information and will explore the issues and options with callers. For some parents/carers a follow up visit and/or ongoing support may be necessary, however, they are encouraged to act for themselves wherever possible. We work closely with schools, LEA, health authority, social services and voluntary organisations to ensure parents/carers views are heard and taken into account.
A free written information pack is available for parents/carers and other interested parties.