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PODS Half-Term Crafts Session & Lots More...
PODS Half-Term Crafts Session
Open to children/young people of all ages and their siblings. Booking and parent/carer attendance is essential.
Please email jeannie@podstelford.org for more information.
PODS Blists Hill Family Group
Thursday 23rd February 2023 from 10am-12pm at Blists Hill Victorian Town, Telford, TF7 5UD
Come and join us at PODS Family Group in Blists Hill Victorian Town for a chat, relax, and meet with friendly faces. Ask us for some advice or just enjoy a walk around the village. Please note a facemask is required in some parts of the village. Tickets are available at a subsidised cost of £3.00 per person. PODS will provide 1 tea/coffee/soft drink to each person booked, however you will have to purchase your own other refreshments if required.
Places are limited and booking is essential, open to all PODS members living in Telford and Wrekin. Please note that the tickets are non-refundable. Children, of any age, are welcome however if they are under 2 years old, no ticket is required. We will be meeting at the entrance at 10am, please let us know if you will be late or can no longer make it so as the group can enter on time.
To book your place, please click here: PODS Blists Hill Family Group
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PODS Admaston Family Group
Monday 6th March 2023 from 10am-12pm at Admaston House Community Centre, Telford, TF5 0BN
Join us at our friendly Family group, a chance to catch up on updates, discuss services and access non-judgemental peer support with fellow parent carers.
Any family members welcome to join us and we'll supply the refreshments and treats too (donations welcome).
To book your place, please click here: PODS Admaston Family Group
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Short Breaks Newsletter - February
Sharing from Telford & Wrekin Council…
“We will be releasing a new edition each month highlighting any hot topics, updates from us to parents and carers within Telford, and dates for your diaries for the current and next month. This should give you plenty of time to find out more online and book a place, if required.
There are LOTS of activities and events being held in the community within Telford for children and young people with disabilities to get involved in that you may not yet be aware of. Hopefully, this newsletter will change that!”
To read the newsletter in full, please click here: Short Breaks Newsletter – February
Additional Learning Support Parent Survey
We have recently been invited to meet with Shrewsbury College Head of Additional Learning Support. They have asked us to share their survey to gather views of local families and are keen to hear experiences and thoughts about how they develop services to meet needs. This will feed into their strategy planning over the next five years.
If you have a child who is in year 7 or above please complete this short survey here: Additional Learning Support Parent Survey (office.com)
NHS England Survey on Health Services - to Develop "Quality Improvement Frameworks"
NHS England want to find out what ‘quality’ means for parent carers when it comes to health services. They will use your anonymous survey responses to develop a new quality improvement framework for practitioners and organisations supporting SEND families.
Closing date is 28th February.
You can complete the survey here: Making Health Provision Better for Children and Young People with SEND aged 0-25 (office.com)
Health and Wellness Fair - Today (15th February)
Do you have a young person/adult with Learning Disability or Autism Please come and see us at this event today (Wednesday 15th February).
"A “Health and Wellness Fair” takes place on Wednesday, 15 February at Telford & Wrekin Council for Voluntary Service (CVS), to enable adults with a learning disability and adults with autism to access, in one place, a range of local community support available to them."
To find our more, please click here: Newsroom - Do you have a Learning Disability or Autism? Come to the “Health and Wellness Fair” on 15 February! (telford.gov.uk)
PODS After School Clubs
Please see the poster below for details of PODS After School Clubs held at PODS Hub during Term Time. Cost is £3 per child.
To book your place, please click on the links below:
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Taylor Support - Play Therapy Offer
Please see the poster below for Taylor Support's Play Therapy Offer.
Information from Telford & Wrekin Community Champions
Free Activity Packs at Park Lane Centre
Half Term Packs available including a recipe and ingredients as well as nature themed activity pack. Collect Wednesday 22nd February 1pm-3pm.
Learn Telford - Pop Up
Water Safety: Canal & River Trust
Some water safety advice from the Canal & River Trust for parents of small children here - "Hold hands, take two steps back." Watch the video here
Update from Jayne, Strategic Co-ordinator (from 13.02.23)
I want to start my update this week with a massive 'thank you' to fellow parent carers of a young person, a certain age, who reached out to support me yesterday when I asked for help on our PODS Forum 'chatspace'. It's a safe place, where I felt I could talk openly - I've had offers and ideas, suggestions and lovely words. I'm not sure if some of those parent carers know 'who' I am, probably never met me before, don't know my background - but for that time - I was 'just' another mum - a parent carer struggling.... So what I'd say to anyone, who is struggling - a big bit, or a little bit, is to reach out and ask - maybe not today, or tomorrow, but maybe in the future you will have the courage to do so.
So, back to my 'day job'.... trying to make a difference for all the families out there - we have sooo much to do and we already do so much, and it's frustrating that things take so long to get sorted. We're in the middle of conversations at the moment about Short Breaks offers - who are they for, where do they happen, are they up to 18 or up to 25 - which bit of legislation are we working under or with? and then linked to this, but separate at the same time are conversations with Children with Disabilities Team and the Record of children with disabilities - all these bits of work overlap somewhere along the line, and we are trying to make systems work clearer for our families and make sure you get the right help at the right time, as and when you need it quickly. I'm currently hearing from families, again, who can't get get through the door as needs not deemed severe enough, meanwhile families who have been assessed as having high enough needs are not able to access any support either. I know that we've all heard about the challenges that face the social care work - staffing, respite, availability of PAs and yes there is work going on here too - but I know it's frustrating for families. All I can promise you, is that we are working to get this sorted. There will be a Short Breaks group coming up soon - we'll get information out and I would encourage anyone to attend to share your experiences directly to those in charge of delivering services.
Other big areas of work - the mental health transformation plan (including mental health services for neurodevelopment (Autism, ADHD) that we are working on - we really are crying out for some information, some concrete plans, information for families (even if it's an update of what is happening (or not), at least communication is something better than nothing, the Long Term Plan for Learning Disability and Autism continues and we need to start planning again for future years - not only influencing local, but regionally and nationally too to ensure that the key messages come out from Central Government.
We are awaiting news of the SEND OFSTED/CQC inspection and just working up some presentations to families to share with you, to give you an update of what's happened since the last one, and what will happen this time - please watch out for these in the ebulletin and articles on social media.
Today, I'm off to a 'Threshold of Need' conference - it's all day - I'm really hoping that it will give some clarity on access to support and services and will let you know in the next week or so, meanwhile there's lots of activity back at the PODS Hub and for those who are attending hope you have a lovely day.
Best Regards
Please contact me to discuss any questions in the update above.
Jayne@podstelford.org / 0777 534 2092
Action for Happiness Calendar - Friendly February 2023
Please note the above material is subject to copyright, please contact PODS before sharing any of the information in this PODS Ebulletin.
Thank you for reading our latest Ebulletin, please stay safe & well.
Kerrie Seagrave, Member Support Co-ordinator
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.