Hounslow Parent Carers Forum is a group of Hounslow-based parents/carers of children/young people (aged 0 to 25 years) with disabilities or special educational needs.

Hounslow Parent Carer Forum’s activities are undertaken for the benefit of Parents, Carers and families of children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).

The work we do is focused around:

• Enabling families to have a voice
• Enabling families to support themselves
• Enabling families to support each other

The Hounslow Parent Carer Forum is empathetic with the issues and challenges that parents and carers of children and young people with SEND are facing; we have faced these real-life experiences ourselves.

We are a friendly voluntary group of parents and carers of SEND children and young people.

Our aim is to give Parent/Carers in Hounslow a voice in influencing local planning and decision making about services for our children in the borough.

We are a key strategic partner with Hounslow Local Authority and the Health & Voluntary sector to ensure that local services and facilities better meet the needs of the SEND children, young people and their families.

The Forum meets monthly to discuss real issues that affect families such as health, education and employment.  Professionals from organisations including the local authority are invited to share their current plans and to hear what parents have to say. It is also a place to share information parent to parent and to ask questions.

The forum is led by parent carers, Chaitan Shah (Chair), Jennie Tweedy (Vice Chair) and Joy Wilson (Admin).

We also hold a Coffee & Chat mornings every month at venues across the borough. Details can be found on the calendar. We have a men’s group called ‘Men Too’, organised by Matthew Newman to help support men, be it dads, grandads, uncles, brothers etc.

We also have an associate mailing list for organisations who are interested in what the Forum is doing.