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Talking with families

At a glance

This page explains the work of the Parent Voice Team and how families in Bristol can share their experiences. It shows how your feedback helps improve services across education, health, and social care. You can share your views by contacting us here or completing our short surveys.

Introduction

Talking with and listening to families and other groups that work with families is at the heart of everything we do. We create opportunities for families in Bristol to share their experiences of education, health and social care services, to help decision-makers at Bristol city council or within health services, understand what’s working well for fmailies and where improvements may be needed.

We want every family to feel able to have their voice heard. We offer translation and interpretation support and welcome ideas on new ways to reach and involve families. 

How we plan our work

We plan part of our work to help deliver the aims set out in the area SEND strategy. This plan was created by Bristol City Council, local health services, families, schools, voluntary and community sector organisations, to help children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) get the support they need.

We also work with commissioners at Bristol City Council and in local health services. Commissioners are the people who plan, pay for, and check services to make sure families get the right support at the right time. We help them make sure that new services, or services that are being updated, meet the needs of families in Bristol.

Families’ feedback tells the people who plan and pay for services what works well, what needs to change, and how services can work together to better suport families.

Our themes

Each term, we focus on important topics to collect feedback from families. These are called our termly themes. We use themes so that we can make sure we hear from families about all areas of SEND in a structured way, and so that feedback can be focused, meaningful, and useful for improving services.

You can complete any of the short surveys below, or you can share your views by contacting us here.

Talk to us about: Transitions

Tell us about times your child has moved between schools, year groups or different services, including transitions from children’s to adult services, and how well they were supported

Read More »

Talk to us about: Social Care

Tell us about the social care support your child, siblings, or your family receives, including short breaks, home help, time you have apart from your child and other family support.

Read More »
What we do with your feedback

We listen carefully to what families tell us and take it seriously.

We look for patterns in what people say. This helps us understand what is working well and what needs to change.

We share these messages with education, health, and social care services, without naming families. We explain what families are experiencing and what they need to be different.

We ask questions, challenge things that are not working, and keep raising issues until changes are made or clear answers are given.

When you share your views, you help make things better – not just for your family, but for others too

The impact of our work

When parent carers share their views with us, those experiences do not sit on a shelf.

Families across Bristol tell us what is working well and what is not. We bring these shared experiences together to build a clear picture of families’ needs and priorities.

We work with education, health, and social care teams, using parent carers’ feedback to inform discussions, raise questions, and support improvements in how support is planned and delivered.

Because families share their views, services have better information, a stronger understanding of real-life experiences, and clearer insight into what families need to see change.

This is how individual voices become collective impact.

Friends of the Forum – how we work together with other organisations

Friends of the Forum is how we work alongside SEND organisations across Bristol to improve support for families.

We welcome any organisation that supports SEND families to be part of this approach.

Together, we:

  • Develop resources collaboratively – Bristol Parent Carers (BPC) coordinates and prints shared resources, and partners can help shape the content, share ideas, and include their organisation’s logo.

  • Listen to families – organisations bring feedback from their communities, and we make sure those real experiences are heard.

  • Feed views into the system – we take this feedback directly to system partners so it can lead to meaningful change.

  • Plan for improvement – we work together on a shared plan, looking ahead over the next four years at the improvements we believe will make the biggest difference in SEND.

This work aligns with Bristol City Council’s SEND and Inclusion Strategy, which means families, schools, organisations, and the local authority are all pulling in the same direction.

By working together in this way, we can reduce duplication, make better use of everyone’s time and expertise, and create clearer, more joined-up support for SEND families across the city.

If you want to join (we meet three times each year), please get in touch.

Sharing your views safely

We know that sharing your experiences can feel personal. We take this seriously and do everything we can to keep your information safe.

You can choose what you share with us. You never have to give names or details that could identify you or your child unless you want to.

We store information securely and only use it to understand what is working well and what needs to improve for families. We do not share personal details without permission.

When we talk to services about what families have told us, we do this in a general way. This means we focus on patterns and themes, not individual stories.

Our role is to listen, protect your voice, and make sure families are heard safely and respectfully.

If you ever have questions or worries about how your information is used, you can ask us at any time.

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