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Healthwatch Telford and Wrekin Public Meeting & Lots More...

Healthwatch Telford and Wrekin Public Meeting

Join Healthwatch Telford and Wrekin tomorrow to have your say on local health & social care services in Telford & Wrekin. PODS Parent Carer Forum are working more closely with Healthwatch on key issues locally.

my AFK

my AFK charity provides wheelchairs, specialist trikes and other mobility equipment for 0-25 year olds. To find out more about them, please click here: my AFK

From NHS Telford & Wrekin CCG

A press release has been sent out in relation to the search for a single accountable officer for Shropshire & Telford & Wrekin CCGs.

SEND Professional Newsletters

You can find all the SEND Professional Newsletters from the council here on the Local Offer: SEND Professional Newsletters

Loneliness in Telford & Wrekin

We're working with the council on the wider 'loneliness' agenda, ensuring there's awareness of our families and our more vulnerable children too. We're hoping our new project plans will address some of this where we've highlighted needs and identified gaps in services. Please click here to read Seven different stories about loneliness in Telford and Wrekin

The NHS Long Term Plan for Learning Disability and Autism

To find out what the new NHS Long Term Plan means for people with a learning disability, autism, or both and their families and carers. To view the video, please click here and to read more, please click here: NHS Long Term Plan.

OFSTED Parent View

DID YOU KNOW about OFSTED Parent View?

"Parent View gives you the chance to tell Ofsted what you think about your child’s school, from the quality of teaching to dealing with bullying and poor behaviour. The survey can be completed at any time; you don’t have to wait until the school is being inspected.

We will use the information you provide when making decisions about which schools to inspect and when"

To find out more, please click here: Parent View

Update from Elaine Pearce, PODS Project Officer

As a team we have recently been putting together all the content for the next Newsletter (which is looking fab) and it dawned on me whilst writing the foreword that I’m usually quite silent with regards to social media and posts. I felt that this needs to change and I should be more proactive with updates etc. So following on from such a busy June with Volunteer week and Carers week I thought it would be a good time to start.
As our last year of Big Lottery funding comes to an end as a team we have been very busy looking to the future and have been holding planning meetings and listening to members feedback to path the way forward for the coming years. We have lots of exciting new things planned on the horizon as well as retaining all our current activities. We have this week put in for our next funding bid and have everything crossed for its success. We wish to thank all our families for their continued support around new booking systems and the introduction of small charges to access certain activities, these have been necessary to allow us to apply for future funding. 
A huge thank you needs to go to our team of volunteers and fundraisers whom without we wouldn’t be able to fund and plan as many events as we do, as well as raising that much needed awareness to ensure we reach as many families as possible. We really hope you enjoyed your night out at Casey’s for volunteers week, albeit not the actual week. The work you all do is a vital part of us continuing forward so thanks again.
Both the Parent Reps and the Befrienders have been very active behind the scenes and I sometimes think their roles are truly not recognised by the wider organisation. So please spare a thought for them and all the hard work that put in over the months supporting families and attending meetings to ensure our services are developing. 
Finally I must thank our amazing team off staff who work immensely hard to ensure our charity keeps progressing and reaching out to as many families as possible. They have an extremely difficult and demanding job, in fact the job actually becomes our lives. In the last month alone, collectively between the 4 members of staff we have carried out over 70 hours! of unpaid work and cancelled 2 holidays due to work deadlines, I have never met or had the pleasure of working with such a dedicated team. Our aim as a team is always to try and support and please everyone but we do have to sometimes except that in such a demanding environment this is not always possible and it is hard for us to come to terms with us, so we thank all of those who support us.

Weekly Update from Jayne Stevens (Participation Co-ordinator)...

Morning all . . . How's the weekend been for you? Busy - dodging the 'storms' or catching up on housework - or enjoying the sunshine on Saturday - we've tackled the garden and I've managed to finish cleaning the windows (I've sort of had help but only because we have a window vac thingy and my man-child quite likes a gadget to fiddle with (albeit it took me twice as long ...).

So meetings last week - there was an update meeting regarding the 0-19 healthy child servie (wasn't the discussion I was expecting but useful all the same to understand the lead nurse role plays regarding special schools (except Bridge where school nursing is supported by CCG). On to a briefing regarding strengthening families team and the new Threshold Guidance - "A partnership framework for assessment and support". There was a very clear message around partnership working - and 'early help' being everyone's business and where any family feel they want to access a service especially at universal or vulnerable stages, they should be encouraged to close to home, within their local community and there's a call for a strength based approach. We know from all our experience and feedback that families really do benefit from direct contact with others with similar experiences to their own and one of the reasons why our events and family groups are so popular and welcoming - we might not have all the answers straight away, but bringing families together is one of our main goals. Through the briefing there was a windscreen model of support and threshold descriptors of universal-vulnerable-complex-acute are all explained in more more detail on Telford and Wrekin Council pages.

I've managed to catch up with another couple of my parent reps this week - Sarah who attends the Local offer and Comms meetings with me and will soon be attending meetings regarding Transition from primary to secondary school, and Keiron who leads on the carers Board work - bringing the voices of 'carers with younger adults and sandwich carers' to the table and linking up with communities.

I've also had the opportunity to pop in to the newly developed IASS Steering Group led by new Manager Julie Collins. This is an opportunity to bring together key professionals with IASS and also PODS to work more closely together as per the IASS Minimum standards for SEND Information, Advice and Support Services - so look out for more information on this and the wider offer from IASS coming soon.

This last week has seen me have the opportunity to write up notes from meetings and workshops and a bit of time for reflection (a rare commodity but really important). What it has highlighted is the need for wider support around children and young people mental health and emotional resilience at all levels (even before heading for a diagnosis!) - there's some really great work happening in pathfinder sites and whilst this is shared at a regional level among professionals, I can bring it to the local meetings and make recommendations and have discussions to see how we can get it embedded here in Telford! If you want to know more about this, then pop along to family group in Dawley on Friday 28th June - I'd love to share the information and hear your ideas on how this might work please?

I'm heading into this week with a Regional transforming care meeting regarding inpatient admissions for 16-25yr olds with ASD and/or Autism, Caretech update, then we have some 'community hubs' events taking place in 3 key areas identified as Madeley, Leegomery and Malinslee, with support from my parent reps at all of these. Reports that I've mentioned will be discussed with reps at Steering group next week and then shared through our closed 'chatspace group'. You are more than welcome to join this group if you are a member of PODS Forum, so pop on over to PODS Forum 'Chat Space' 

Come and join us at our New Look Family Groups throughout 2019!...

Friday 28th June 2019: PODS Family Group from 9.30am-11.30am at Dawley Town Hall (opposite Langley School/CAMHS) New Street, Dawley, Telford, TF4 3JR. To book your place, please click here

Sunday 30th June 2019: Face 2 Face Family Group from 9.30am-11.00am at the Wacky Warehouse, Bridge Builder Pub, Wrekin Retail Park, Arleston, Telford, TF1 2DE. To book your place, please click here

Monday 1st July 2019: Face 2 Face Family Group to include Parent Carer Wellbeing from 10.00am-12.00pm at Admaston House, Admaston, Telford, TF5 0BN. To book your place, please click here

Thursday 11th July 2019: Family Group Details to be Confirmed.

Wednesday 17th July 2019: PODS Family Group with BEAM (mental health support) from 9.30am-11.30am at Hollinswood Community Centre, 7 Downemead, Telford, TF3 2EW. To book your place, please click here

Thank you for reading our latest bulletin. 

Kerrie Seagrave

Project Administrator on behalf of PODS Parent Carer Forum.

We hope you enjoyed reading our latest e-bulletin - we hope you continue to find it useful. If you have any suggestions to make it better feel free to let me know.