## **WORKING TOGETHER FOR BETTER LIVES** _for children with disabilities or additional needs_ **----- Start of picture text -----**
Family Voice
Surrey, CIO
Annual Report
1st April 2020
to 31st March 2021
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**“If you need a differently accessible version of this report, please email contact@familyvoicesurrey.org or call 01372 705708”** ## **Contents** |Chair Comments
3
Priorities for the Year
4
Highlights of the year
4
Family Voice Surrey in Numbers 2020/21
5
Who we are and what we do
6
Organisational appraisal
6
Partnership
7
Word from Liz
7
2020: The year of the Pandemic
8
Staf and Changing Workload
8
Funding
8
Engagement with members and other parent carers 10
Events
10
Surveys, focus groups, reports
11
Keeping in touch and being transparent
11
Participation and Co-production with local
area partners and the 3rd sector
12|Meetings attended include:
12| |---|---| ||Early Years
12| ||Autism Strategy
13| ||EHCP Processes
13| ||Key stage transfers
13| ||SEND Transport
13| ||PfA
14| ||EWMH
14| ||Short Breaks
14| ||Children with Disabilities social care team 15| ||Inspections
15| ||Direct Payments
15| ||April – September 2021
16| ||Plans for 2021-2022
16| ||Finance
18| ||Finance Report
19| ||Appendix
24| ## **The Trustee Board** ## **Sally Allen (Chair)** Sally was appointed to the Board in Sept 2019 and became our Chair in July 2020. Sally has 30+ years’ experience of working within local authority education, housing, social care, and voluntary sector settings undertaking both frontline service delivery and strategic commissioning and Senior Management roles. As an experienced Programme Manager her passion lies in bringing people together who have a wide range of experience, skills and perspectives and harnessing that knowledge and expertise to bring about positive change. Working with a passionate team of people who have different perspectives is one of the most enjoyable and rewarding aspects of her role. Sally feels blessed to have experienced living with difference throughout her life – the challenges and gifts that living with an additional need or disability has brought to people closest to her, and to her family as a whole. ## **Simon Morley (Treasurer)** Simon joined the then FVS steering committee as Treasurer in June 2017, and was a founding charity trustee when we became a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO) in November 2017. He is a qualified accountant with broad commercial experience, and a post graduate degree in Charity Finance and Administration, and has served in similar roles in a number of other charities. Simon has two sons, one of whom has special educational needs and disability. ## **Karen Lettington** Karen has taught in a special school as a class teacher and worked in three mainstream school as a SENCO. Currently she is completing an MA in SEND. She is dyslexic and also has a son with SEND. Karen hopes that with both her professional and personal experiences she can help implement improvements for children and young people in the county. In addition, two new Trustees were appointed on 20th September 2021, being Sarah Clarke and Samantha Edginton. 2 _**Speaking up for the families of children & young people with additional needs in Surrey**_ ## **Chair Comments... Sally Allen** partners and new sponsors. This allowed us to respond and to move quickly from being reactive to proactive, focusing on the things that families told us that really mattered to them. ## **Looking back on 2019-20, who could have predicted the events which started to unfold just as the financial year came to an end?** ## **Particular highlights of the year for me are:** - The truly collaborative work that went into the production of Surrey’s All-Age Autism Strategy, with the people most impacted involved every step of the way. Who could have predicted the pain, the challenges and the scale of our learning and re-affirmation of our values, the things that matter and that we hold dear ? - Our work with SCC to ensure that our partnership and support for families is sustainable and relevant by working together to co-produce and agree a 3 year Partnership and Grant Agreement. I truly believe that the lived experiences of our parent carer Members and fantastic staff team placed us in a strong position. Our collective skills and the learning gained as parent carers set us in good stead to provide a strong and flexible response to the challenges of the pandemic. - The creative workshops conducted on Zoom - where the voice of parent carers helped to shape our vision and values and to prioritise where our focus should be, and of course our Annual Event which attracted over 4000 views! As families united by the wonderful gifts and learning that our children bring.... **…we are used to spending hours on creating plans that get dashed or don’t get implemented properly, or at all, are able to respond to the unexpected and frequently at last the minute, we continue to learn with our children and young people how to navigate an extremely complicated and sometimes scary world. ……..and just when we think we have got our degree in “autism” and have got things straight , we wake up to a whole new set of challenges.** Despite the additional personal challenges faced by many of our staff and families as the pandemic unfolded we continued to put parent carers and their children’s voices and experience at the heart of everything we do. Importantly we continued to raise the profile of vital issues, never reluctant to have sometimes challenging conversations with our strategic partners. I want to particularly thank the families who contacted us about their experiences of the Key Stage transfer process so that we could try to find answers to their questions and ensure that their voices were heard. We continue to work to ensure positive change for our children. As we develop as an organisation it is vital that we develop our offer too - ensuring that we are truly representative of the voices of our diverse community in Surrey is our top priority. Looking ahead I will continue on working with our awesome Chief Exec, Benedicte and FVS team and Board in reaching out to new Members and strengthening the Board. I am confident that we can further diversify our skills and knowledge to provide a truly representative collective voice for Surrey families that continues to bring about positive change. I am proud to say that FVS has performed well during the year. Thanks to our fantastic Treasurer (and previous Chair) , Simon Morley, Benedicte Symcox, our CEO and Claire Poole, Head of Business, Planning & Development, we entered into the pandemic with a healthy level of reserves and prospects of additional support from our 3 _**Speaking up for the families of children & young people with additional needs in Surrey**_ ## **Priorities for the Year** **1. Annual event “Preparation for adulthood”** - **2** . **Continue to build on Effective Partnership work with SCC** and secure a long-term agreement to allow for strategic planning **3. Continue to develop the Coordinator Project** and ensure that Coordinators are heard in participation work **4. Training program for parents** from experts in their field and SCC/CCG professionals **5.** _**Deliver the USSA course to more parents**_ This was not possible due to the pandemic **6.** _**Launch our new website**_ Unforeseen circumstances have pushed this into the next year **7. Trustee recruitment** – strengthen and diversify the board **8. Collaborate with SCC on the following workstreams:** - SEND transport - Local Offer - Development of autism strategy - _**Development of early years strategy**_ Early years worked changed dramatically as the health system addressed the pandemic, but we did several pieces of work in this field - CAMHS re-procurement and mobilisation - Direct Payments - Review of Social Care services for SEND children - School Absence - EHCP processes - Returning to School from Lockdown - _**Development and mobilisation of the Learner SPA**_ This became a part of a larger communication and information project that includes the Local Offer **9. Organisational appraisal** – review the charity’s aims and business processes **10. Membership** – increase diversity and reach so that membership is representative of SEND parent voices. ## **Highlights of the year** ## **Work to influence decision making in Surrey includes:** **1. Development of the All-Age Autism strategy:** FVS led a strong representation of lived experience that influenced the development of the strategy at every stage and continues to influence its implementation **2. Preparation for Adulthood:** our virtual annual event took place over a week and leaves a legacy of relevant and informative videos for parents, young people and professional to refer to on YouTube and Facebook **3. Covid response:** we moved to a fully virtual offer, but have been able to support members through this difficult time and seen an increase in membership **4. Direct Payments:** FVS championed the needs of parents through changes to DP rates at the height of the lockdown **5. Short Breaks:** While FVS continued to be a strong part of the strategic review of short breaks, our role this year was to highlight the importance of this service in a year when most schemes were closed or severely curtailed **6. Ofsted processes:** Department for Education (DfE) and NHS England (NHSE) visited in Dec 20 to review SCC progress on the original visit. FVS represented parent carer voices to ensure lived experience was considered alongside the statistics. 4 _**Speaking up for the families of children & young people with additional needs in Surrey**_ ## **Family Voice Surrey in Numbers 2020/21** **----- Start of picture text -----**
Anxiety
CAMHS
Self care
professionals
38+
External Condition
organisations training events specific
SEND law and
Anxiety
processes
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5 _**Speaking up for the families of children & young people with additional needs in Surrey**_ ## **Who we are and what we do** ## **We champion...** the needs and rights of families of children and young people 0-25 years with Special Educational Needs, chronic illness, including mental health conditions, and disabilities living in Surrey. ## **We are passionate...** about improving outcomes for our children & young people and keep this at the heart of everything we co-create, co-produce and do. ## **Our Members and staff are experts...** by experience and as such, have a unique understanding of how challenging and rewarding life can be raising a young person with SEND. ## **We inform, shape and monitor...** the development of local services so that they can continually improve and enhance the experience and life opportunities for children and young people, and their parents, families and carers. ## **We value partnerships...** and work alongside Surrey County Council and Local Commissioning Groups as a strategic partner, representing our members voice when key decisions are being made. ## **We are NOT...** a support group, a protest group and cannot advocate for individuals but… we rely on feedback from parents in order to represent their voice - they tell us their valuable stories. ## ~~**Organisational appraisal**~~ ## **Vision** - A society that allows families whose children have additional needs to be heard. - A society in which ALL children thrive and are supported to achieve their dreams. - A society that celebrates difference and diversity. - A society that breaks down the barriers faced by children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities. ## **Mission** - Family Voice Surrey aims to bring about positive change for young people with additional needs by: - Giving families a strong collective voice. - Being a professional, parent carer led organisation. - Ensuring parent carers are valued as equal partners within the local authority. - Supporting parent carers to understand their rights and choices. ## **Values** - **We are an organisation that is:** - Respectful - even if we don’t agree - Supportive - even if we don’t understand - Positive - even when we challenge each other - Equitable - being flexible and prepapred to adjust if needed - Committed - even when positive change seems slow - Engaged - we listen to ALL points of view As is right for any charity, we took time this year to re-examine our vision and develop a mission and a set of values that guide all of our work. Please see the finance section for further details of our income and expenditure. 6 _**Speaking up for the families of children & young people with additional needs in Surrey**_ ## **Partnership** **Word from Liz Mills, Director of Children, Families, Lifelong Learning and Culture, Surrey County Council** **I’d like to start by acknowledging that the last year has been incredibly challenging for families, the pandemic has brought stress, uncertainty and anxiety. For many, a connection with their community was lost, perhaps at a time, when they needed it most. Children and young people have had to cope with a huge amount of change, especially those unable to attend their education setting in lockdown and then having to adapt again when restrictions were lifted.** Family Voice Surrey have been instrumental in helping us understand the changing needs of families and carers in Surrey. Only by listening and acting upon the child’s and family/ carer’s voice, are we able to put into place more effective arrangements for our families and carers and improve the outcomes for children and young people. families of Surrey through their contribution and presentations to select committees, involvement in our SEND Partnership Board and the Schools Forum. They have helped to coproduce the All-Age Autism Strategy; this was an important piece of coproduction work, ensuring those with lived experience were at the core of this strategy development. At Surrey County Council, our ambition continues to be that we root the child at the heart of everything, as a result we have adopted Surrey Youth Focus’s Time for Kids principles to remind us all, no matter how busy we are, to think about what is best for the child or young person. I’ve seen the change in meeting culture, when we adopt these principles at the start of each meeting. This one small change can help with our collective outcomes and make us really reflect on what we can do to help children and young people thrive. I look forward to the next 12 months, we will continue to build on our partnership work with a focus on the next stage of our SEND strategy. Working closely with Family Voice Surrey, we will co-produce this with children, young people and their families and carers in Surrey, keeping their voice central to all that we do. Family Voice Surrey give us valuable insight into the reality of the families of carers of children with special educational needs and disabilities. They have been proactive in using their voice for 7 _**Speaking up for the families of children & young people with additional needs in Surrey**_ ## **Partnership** ## **2020: The Year of the Pandemic** Within three weeks of starting a new financial year, we were in the midst of a pandemic, with the knowledge that our members’ families were likely to be among the most severely impacted. As the world adjusted to the kind of isolation our members have lived with for years, much if not all the essential support they had disappeared. While some children continued with school, many were too vulnerable, or schools could not accommodate their needs. At FVS, we swiftly moved to a solely online presence and considered what we could do to render support to families while also keeping them informed of the almost daily changes. This was facilitated by weekly meetings with an assistant director in the lifelong learning directorate. Through these meetings, we were able to raise issues we heard from parents (the need to continue paying PAs (personal assistants) was a key decision informed by parent carers) and take key decisions back to parent carers via our Facebook group. ## **Staff and Changing Workload** It is of utmost importance to note in this report the phenomenal response of FVS staff to this extraordinary situation. While all being parent carers themselves, they not only adapted to home schooling like all other parents, but found the strength and creativity to reach out to other parent carers and immediately provide more opportunity for engagement and participation. It was more important than ever to ensure that the lived experience of our members was heard and conveyed to our partners within the local authority and health systems. Our children and young people suddenly lost all the support and routine that allows them to get through each day. Many parents were struggling to access PPE, medicines and the therapies that keep their children well and we heard from others who were desperately trying to source the one food that their child was able to eat as our whole society was reeling from an unknown situation. We quickly understood that we were in a position to provide support as well as be the conduit by which our partners could hear from families and get important messages to them. A weekly team meeting via Zoom allowed us to support staff amidst this traumatic time, and coordinators responded to parent carers’ isolation by creating Zoom events on a weekly basis. Simultaneously, health and local authority partners came together in an unprecedented way and we were invited as a critical member of many groups to ensure that any response was meeting the need of families. This resulted in a greatly increased demand for FVS participation. ## **Funding** In order to meet this new demand across both our engagement work with families and participation with partners, we became very agile in applying for grants made available to organisations responding to the Covid crisis. Our financial report below will give further details, but this section gives an indication of our response and the support we were able to source to ensure an appropriate response to families. 8 _**Speaking up for the families of children & young people with additional needs in Surrey**_ ## **Who we are and what we do** **----- Start of picture text -----**
SURREY
COUNTY COUNCIL
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## **£12,500** allowed us to increase staff hours to engage more frequently with parent carers, and to spend more time working with partners in the local authority and health services to convey what we were hearing. We also purchased 2 laptops, some Facebook training and Zoom licenses to reach families more effectively. ## **£5,000** supported the expanding need of our coordinator project. We focussed these funds in areas where we had the best resources and could have the best impact at the time. These were the districts and boroughs of Epsom and Ewell, Guildford, Tandridge, and Woking. ## **£7784** ensured that all staff were equipped with functioning laptops (a year of virtual working had taken its toll on equipment!). Importantly, this grant allowed us to support staff with a range of emotional wellbeing support. As they have been on the front line of traumatic stories, that support has become ever more necessary and we were grateful to Pears for allowing us to provide training and a First Aid Mental Health workshop. _**My personal laptop was failing, resulting in disrupted connections during meetings, battery failures and microphone failures. Our work is primarily about communication and relationships, and this was increasingly difficult to achieve. The new laptop came in the nick of time and I have been able to continue working successfully. I also feel happier with a separate work machine given the sensitive nature of the work I do with partners.**_ **I’m really looking forward to the first aid mental health course because many of the parent carers we speak to are in some crisis and I look forward to having more strategies to support them and build my own resilience.** 9 _**Speaking up for the families of children & young people with additional needs in Surrey**_ ## **Engagement with members and other parent carers** ## **Events** Zoom has allowed FVS to host far more training events for parent carers as travel and childcare issues do not need the same kind of management. Our team of coordinators has adapted to provide Surrey-wide events while still providing a local point of contact for parents through private borough- based FB groups. Coordinators respond to the needs of their local membership which has led to a wide range of events being offered, including: _**It was very helpful to have the space to be with other parents and feel less alone with things. I really appreciated it. Thank you for organising it, and for the resource links.**_ ## _**Anxiety Support**_ - School anxiety chat: monthly group for affected parents - SABP School Anxiety talk - Lynne Davis School Anxiety workshop - Mark Brown talk on anxiety ## **Self-care** - ‘Self-care for carers from The Made Up Mum’ - ‘Wellbeing strategies for parents of 16-25 year-olds’ - Shine development course for women ## **Navigating SEND** - WEA ‘Navigating your way through SEND’ - SEND law talk Eleanor Wright, SOSSEN **I love Dean’s sense of humour and passion about neurodiversity. The biggest credit to this session is that my husband was absolutely transfixed the entire time and said “I could listen to him all night” and he NEVER engages with stuff like this. Dean gave me a lot to think about and I have taken a lot away from the talk** - Send Advice Surrey ## **Condition-specific training** ## **ADHD awareness** - Max Green Event ADHD - Dean Beadle ASD and Anxiety - Jo Purdey, ADHD UK ## **ASD issues including PDA** - Curly Hair Project presentation and Q&A - Self-harm & neurodiversity talk, Dr Mark Brown - Laura Kerbey PDA talk _**Just wanted to reach out and thank you personally. Not just for your suggestions of help personally. But also being an amazing person getting all these meetings and help out there. Wish I would have got involved sooner.**_ - WEA Understanding Your Child’s Autism workshop - Dyspraxia (Developmental Coordination disorder), Autism and ADHD ## **Dyslexia awareness** - Dyslexia awareness talk Claire Harvey, Helen Arkell Centre - Dyslexia Awareness discussion 10 _**Speaking up for the families of children & young people with additional needs in Surrey**_ ## **Sleep** ## **Expert Parenting Programme** - Mark Brown talk on sleep problems - Sleep Specialist - Expert Parenting Programme part 1&2 Gail Bedding & Grainne Saunders ## **Other speakers** - Moves Matter - Positive Autism Support and Training - Bridge Flexi School - Blue Badge - Relax Kids - Qwell - Active Surrey - Surrey Young Carers _**The resources mentioned such as youtube channels, books, etc as well as the powerpoint itself are so useful.”**_ - Healthwatch As the year progressed, we adjusted to our members changing needs. Rather than geographic groups, parents told us they wanted to meet with others in similar circumstances. We launched a group for parents of children with Down’s syndrome and those whose children are 0-4 years old. Moving into 2021, this has grown and we currently have the following groups meeting once a month each: - Early years - Post 16 - Global Developmental Delay - Single parents - Downs syndrome - School anxiety - Avoidant or restrictive food intake ## **Surveys, focus groups, reports** ## **FVS Surveys this year included:** SEND Transport June 20 Experiences of Covid June 20 EHCPs July 20 Direct Payments July 20 SEND Transport Feb 21 Return to school March 21 Focus groups include our engagement work, but we also work with partners to support parent participation, for example: **Autism strategy workshops:** FVS supported the multi-systems team by facilitating some of the group discussions **Community Equipment:** FVS hosted local authority partners to inform parent carers of the progress made following a previous survey Reports are produced once surveys have been analysed, as a result of parent discussions or as part of our participation work: - **School Anxiety and Avoidance Group: Parents experiences of things that have helped • Transport survey** ## **Keeping in touch and being transparent** The pandemic spurred us to address a longstanding issue: how and what should we communicate to parents? This year saw the establishment of a monthly newsletter and as the country went into lockdown, we started using Facebook to “talk” to our members, live, on a weekly basis. This was so popular that it has continued and is now a platform through which we invite officers, practitioners, school leaders and 3rd sector organisations working in the sphere of additional needs and young people. In November, we launched our Monthly Overview which is published on our website and summarises all our activity. It allows our members and partners to see how often we speak to parent carers, updates on our projects and questions that are particularly prevalent in our community that month. 11 _**Speaking up for the families of children & young people with additional needs in Surrey**_ ## **Participation and Co-production with local area partners and the 3rd sector** ## **Meetings attended include:** **SEND Systems Partnership Schools Forum** **LD & ASD Programme Board** **Short Breaks Strategic Planning Groups ASD Strategic Board and related groups** **Regular meetings with Designated Clinical Officers** **Preparation and Implementation of the new EWMH service meetings** **Children’s Community Health meetings SEMH Project Board** **Inclusion steering group NNPCF regional meetings Local Offer Project Board 0-4 Workstream meetings Carers Partnership Group Direct Payments meetings** **Quarterly meetings with elected members of SCC** **Monthly meetings with senior council officers** **Monthly meetings with SEND Advice Surrey, UVP team, Surrey Youth Focus** ## **Early years** Families have told us that navigating the system with a young child is daunting. We shared concerns that early intervention cannot work if needs are not correctly identified, and that many of our families were identifying issues before the 24 month check and having to wait months for support. Working in partnership with the health system and other partners in the local area, a pilot was set up to identify and support families of children below 18 months. FVS sat on the interview panel for the post and worked with the team to monitor the progress of the project. Families have been very happy with the service and we hope to see it rolled out across Surrey. **What we really appreciated was the balanced perspective provided by Family Voice – for families who were proactive to find out about support as well as harder to reach communities who typically did not have a strong voice. It has hugely increased our confidence to do things differently by having the support from Family Voice reps. Community Health Early Support has been a small, new, innovative team that has been created during a unique time.** _**Service Lead for Community Health Early Support (CHES)**_ 12 _**Speaking up for the families of children & young people with additional needs in Surrey**_ ## **Autism Strategy** Ahead of a national all age autism strategy, SCC led a multi-system group to develop such a strategy for Surrey. At the heart of the work was to be the lived experience of autistic people and their families. FVS worked in partnership with NAS (National Autistic Society) to ensure the voices of parent carers would be heard in every aspect of this work. We worked to ensure the survey met the needs of parent carers, and SCC saw one of its highest response rates: over 1000, of which 2/3 were from parent carers. FVS led a strong belief that autistic people and their families should and must be heard throughout the process, so three workshops were organised in December. The feedback received led to real change in the previous direction of the strategy, leading to a document that has truly been co-produced with families and autistic people themselves. We look forward to working with all relevant parties on the implementation of the strategy. ## **EHCP Processes** FVS routinely inform local authority partners of the issues faced by parents during the EHCP process. This year we worked with officers to improve the information provided on the Local Offer website in collaboration with SEND Advice Surrey _**Raised awareness of the parent perspective. Developing trust between FVS and vulnerable services. Training for our caseworkers to support them with the difficult conversations.**_ **AD Vulnerable Learners** ## **Key stage transfers** In February 2021, SCC identified 150 families who would not receive a named school for their child’s key stage transfer. We worked with them to develop a strategy to reassure and inform those families. Coordinators collected questions from parent carers which were collated into a set of FAQs. FVS worked with SCC to make sure that the answers were family friendly, and the resulting document was sent to all families affected. ## **SEND Transport** September 2020 saw a huge number of families experiencing problems with the SEND Transport service. FVS gathered a large number of stories that we shared with relevant teams. A FAQ document was subsequently published and while not all issues were resolved, communications were improved. We continued to work with the team to ensure parent carers’ experience was central to the development of a new system and are hopeful that 2021 will see a visible difference. 13 _**Speaking up for the families of children & young people with additional needs in Surrey**_ ## **Preparation for Adulthood** Our first online event focused on preparation for adulthood. We hosted 10 guest speakers both from the local authority and independent experts. Their presentations were pre-recorded but followed up with live question and answer sessions held on our Facebook page. On Facebook, we have had a total of 3,124 views of the presentations and Live Q&As. The Live Q&As were much more popular with nearly double the number of the presentation views. On our YouTube channel we have had 818 views of the same recordings. That’s a total viewing count of 3,942. The 2019-2020 FVS annual report and yearly update has gained 260 views to date. That’s over 4,000 viewings by March 21. _**I found the FVS Preparation for Adulthood event extremely useful. I am now aware as to what options may be available to my son in the future**_ ## **Emotional Wellbeing & Mental Health** We have been meeting with organisations and staff who will be leading on the new contract for EWMH services (starting in April 2021), continuing to feedback parent carer views, highlighting the importance of parent carers being kept informed about the new service and promoting opportunities for parents to engage in discussions about the new service and what children, young people and families need. FVS also facilitated a number of workshops to allow the new service to introduce itself and various aspects of the new model, and for practitioners to hear directly from parent carers. ## **Short Breaks** Summer 2020 saw dramatic changes in the provision and demand for Short Breaks. Vulnerable families did not feel able to use services that might put them at risk, and providers were forced to reduce their capacity to keep everyone safe. Many short breaks are run by 3rd sector organisations, and these felt the financial implications keenly with many closures happening as a result. It was therefore imperative to keep the system aware of the desperate need there is for a comprehensive short breaks service, and that making any commissioning decisions based on 2020 would be a serious mistake. We have been strong advocates for families of children with a very broad range of additional need in our input to the strategic review, highlighting the lack of provision for high functioning autistic children and young people, and children under 6, among others. 14 _**Speaking up for the families of children & young people with additional needs in Surrey**_ **Children with Disabilities social care team** The Children with Disabilities Service at Surrey County Council continues to build its relationship with Family Voice Surrey. Collaborating with Claire Littlewood, Participation Manager, on a range of improvements has helped us to ‘think family’ and bring our decision making back to the impact on the children we support. Family Voice Surrey is a supportive and knowledgeable resource that we are lucky to call on to support our work. We also value the challenge and scrutiny they can provide – this is a key part of developing a collaborative approach to the families we support in Surrey. Some of the ways that Family Voice Surrey have worked with and supported our service during 2020-2021 are: - **Supporting commissioning reviews to ensure we have the right provision in Surrey for children and families.** - **Reviewing our Disability Resource Panel and financial process** - **Reviewing our approaches to partnership working and communications** - **Reviewing threshold and eligibility processes and documentation** - **Meeting with Service Managers to develop relationships and offer support and challenge.** Over the next year we hope to strengthen our relationship with Family Voice Surrey and our community by working collaboratively on our communication with children and families. We also hope to develop local links with the Family Voice events that align with our four quadrants. We hope this will improve understanding or our service and who we work with. We will also be working more closely with our Transition Team on the Pathway to Adulthood initiative we hope that this will improve outcome for young people and support parents through the transition from children’s to adult services. _**Service Manager – Children with Disabilities - SW/SE**_ ## **Inspections** In December 2020, SCC, Health Partners, schools and FVS met with DfE /NHSE representatives to review the councils progress on their action plan following the 2019 Ofsted review. FVS had built relationships with Schools Alliance for Excellence (SAfE), CAMHS, SEND Advice Surrey (SAS) and the User Voice and Participation team (UVP) to consolidate the body of evidence that we have with regards to children who experience barriers to school attendance. This report was submitted to the inspectors and considered in the meeting. DfE thanked FVS for clearly representing parent carer voices and also determined that formal monitoring is no longer necessary. We agreed as a partnership that this should not be seen as a reason to stop efforts to support children for whom school attendance is very difficult and FVS has incorporated “school attendance difficulties” into its “business as usual” workplan. ## **Direct Payments** This is an ongoing project at FVS, and summer 2020 proved to be particularly challenging. We represented parent carers’ fears of losing valuable PAs if they could not pay them through lockdown with the result that SCC made the decision that families should continue paying them despite any inability to work due to Covid 19. At the same time, a review of pay rate was ongoing, with different communication strategies in adults and children’s services meant that our members received conflicting advice. We worked through the summer and into the autumn to help the council’s team send clear guidelines including contact details so that families could ask individual questions. 15 _**Speaking up for the families of children & young people with additional needs in Surrey**_ ## **April - September 2021** The new financial year has already been extremely busy and included the following highlights: - **We have secured a 3 year grant agreement with Surrey County Council** - **We welcomed 4 new members of staff and 2 new trustees to our team** - **We secured 5 year funding from the National Lottery to support our core services** - **We ran our first satisfaction survey to find out what our members and partners wanted from us** - **We are strengthening our project work in partnership with the local authority and health systems** ## **Plans for 2021 - 2022** ## **Our plans for the next year include:** **1. Annual event focused on Early Years (0-6)** **2. Grow our effective partnership to include Health partners and include them in our grant agreement** **3. Develop a team of volunteers to work with coordinators as school reps** **4. Offer training to parents from experts in their field and SCC/CCG professionals** **5. Ensure FVS staff are well trained and supported in their roles** **6. Develop a sustainable and diverse funding strategy** **7. Update our website** **8. Develop links with schools to reach more parent carers** **9. Collaborate with local area partners on the following work plan** 16 _**Speaking up for the families of children & young people with additional needs in Surrey**_ **Plans for 2021 - 2022** ## **EHCP Processes** - **To improve understanding of the role of case officers** - **To highlight parent carer issues to the system and help resolve them** **Inclusion** - **To support true inclusion for CYP with additional needs** - **To aid transparency and communication in the SEND Transformation Program** **Autism Strategy** - **To represent the voice of parent carers in the development and implementation of the strategy** **Preparation for Adulthood** - **To support the development and implementation of the preparing for adulthood transformation program.** - **To represent the voice of parent carers in the transformation work.** **Early Years** - **To host a multi-disciplinary annual event informing families and practitioners about SEND in the 0-6** **SEND Transport** - **To monitor and support a refreshed transport service** - **To support the development of a strong website** **Emotional Wellbeing and Mental Health • To ensure the voice of parent carers is heard by the service** - **To monitor and support the new service with 3rd sector, schools and local area partners** **Social Care** - **To clarify the purpose and criteria of the CwD team** - **To participate in the development and implementation of a Direct Payments strategy** - **To develop understanding of Early Help** **Short Breaks** - **To represent the voice of parent carers in the development of short breaks** - **To work with the 3rd sector to hear all parent carer voices** ## **Health** - **To represent the voice of parent carers in the development and implementation of the community health redesign** - **To collaborate with Healthwatch** - **To represent the experience of parent carers in the health system** **Communication and Information** - **To support an improved digital information service** - **To develop a dynamic FAQ system for parent carers** - **To support the development of the SPA** 17 _**Speaking up for the families of children & young people with additional needs in Surrey**_ ## **Finance** The accounts are prepared, in accordance with Charity Commission guidance CC16, on a Receipts and Payments basis. The net result for the year to 31st March 2021 is a surplus of £2,396 (prior year to 31st March 2019 was a deficit of £10,170). The reserves at 31st March 2021 have increased slightly as a result, to £69,520 (£67,125 at 31/3/20). Income for the year was £140,343 (2019/20 £100,734). This was partly caused by an increase in new funds to support the organisation through the covid crisis which was approximately £27.6k. and Pears DCM funding of £7.7k. Expenditure increased, partly to support the additional work bought on by the covid crisis, partly to enable the transition of the organisation to effectively work throughout the crisis (for example, our move to ‘home-working’, and additional spending on wellbeing and training to enable our staff to cope effectively with the increasingly distressed position of many of our members due to the covid crisis). Our expenditure for the year to 31st March 2021 was £137,947 (2019/20 £110,904). Our reserves position is within our 3-6 month expenditure policy. Since the end of the year we have won some new grants, the most significant being a 5 year National Lottery grant amounting to £81.5k per year, and mentioned in the main Trustee report. This increase in our annual revenue (and consequent expenditure) will require us to increase our reserve levels accordingly. 18 _**Speaking up for the families of children & young people with additional needs in Surrey**_ ## **Finance report** **The accounts are prepared, in accordance with Charity Commission guidance CC16, on a Receipt and Payments basis.** **----- Start of picture text -----**
Family Voice Surrey 1175460
Receipts and payments accounts CC16a
Period start Period end
For the date To date
period from 01/04/2020 31/03/2021
Section A Receipts and
payments
Unrestricte Restricte Endowmen Total
Last Period
d funds d funds t funds funds
to the to the to the nearest to the to the
nearest £ nearest £ £ nearest £ nearest £
A1 Receipts
- -
Surrey County Council Grant 83,000 - 83,000 83,000
Contact 15,000 - 15,000 15,000
Contact Discretionary 5,000 5,000
CFS (R&B) 1,620 1,620
CFS Covid19 (E&E, GU, TA,
WO) 5,000 5,000
Pears 7,784 7,784
SCC/Covid19 12,506 12,506
Mole Valley Covid19 10,000 10,000
Elmbridge BC 2,000
Donations 30 75 - 105 513
Other income 328 - 328 221
- - - - -
Sub total (Gross income
for AR) 83,358 56,985 - 140,343 100,734
A2 Asset and
investment sales, (see
table).
- - - -
- - - - -
Sub total - - - - -
**----- End of picture text -----**
19 _**Speaking up for the families of children & young people with additional needs in Surrey**_ **----- Start of picture text -----**
Total receipts 83,358 56,985 - 140,343 100,734
A3 Payments
Salaries
66,440 26,503 - 92,942 70,344
Travel and expenses
897 1,398 - 2,295 8,405
PfA event
81 4,000 4,081 11,048
Other events / meetings
440 1,430 - 1,870
Training
413 5,846 - 6,259 810
Marketing and Publicity
546
IT/Infrastructure & computer
assets 2,345 8,122 - 10,467 3,537
Rent
3,161 7,878 - 11,039 9,182
Telephone, Stationary and Post
499 - 499 1,351
Other office costs
- -
HR, payroll, consulting,
recruitment 5,540 - 5,540 3,021
Subsctiptions
900 - 900 1,215
Seldom Heard
108 108
Other
375 375
Insurance
611 - 611 545
Independent Examination
960 - - 960 900
Sub total
82,663 55,284 - 137,947 110,904
- - - -
- - - -
Sub total
- - - - -
Total payments -
82,663 55,284 137,947 110,904
Net of -
receipts/(payments) 695 1,701 - 2,396 10,170
A5 Transfers between
funds - - -
A6 Cash funds last year
end 63,488 3,636 - 67,124 77,295
Cash funds this year
end 64,183 5,337 - 69,520 67,125
**----- End of picture text -----**
20 _**Speaking up for the families of children & young people with additional needs in Surrey**_ |**Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of**
**the period**
**Categories**
**Details**
**Unrestricte**
**d funds**
**Restricte**
**d funds**
**to nearest £**
**to nearest £**
**B1 Cash funds**
Cash at Bank
**64,183**
**5,337**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**_Total cash funds_**
**64,183**
**5,337**
(agree balances with receipts and
payments account(s))
OK
OK
**Unrestricte**
**d funds**
**Restricte**
**d funds**
**Details**
**to nearest £**
**to nearest £**
**B2 Other monetary**
**assets**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**Details**
**Fund to**
**which liability**
**relates**
**Amount due**
**(optional)**
**B5 Liabilities**
Microsoft
General
**91.20**
Signature
Print Name
Treasurer
Sally Allen|**Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of**
**the period**
**Categories**
**Details**
**Unrestricte**
**d funds**
**Restricte**
**d funds**
**to nearest £**
**to nearest £**
**B1 Cash funds**
Cash at Bank
**64,183**
**5,337**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**_Total cash funds_**
**64,183**
**5,337**
(agree balances with receipts and
payments account(s))
OK
OK
**Unrestricte**
**d funds**
**Restricte**
**d funds**
**Details**
**to nearest £**
**to nearest £**
**B2 Other monetary**
**assets**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**Details**
**Fund to**
**which liability**
**relates**
**Amount due**
**(optional)**
**B5 Liabilities**
Microsoft
General
**91.20**
Signature
Print Name
Treasurer
Sally Allen|**Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of**
**the period**
**Categories**
**Details**
**Unrestricte**
**d funds**
**Restricte**
**d funds**
**to nearest £**
**to nearest £**
**B1 Cash funds**
Cash at Bank
**64,183**
**5,337**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**_Total cash funds_**
**64,183**
**5,337**
(agree balances with receipts and
payments account(s))
OK
OK
**Unrestricte**
**d funds**
**Restricte**
**d funds**
**Details**
**to nearest £**
**to nearest £**
**B2 Other monetary**
**assets**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**Details**
**Fund to**
**which liability**
**relates**
**Amount due**
**(optional)**
**B5 Liabilities**
Microsoft
General
**91.20**
Signature
Print Name
Treasurer
Sally Allen||**Endowme**
**nt funds**
**to nearest £**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
OK
**Endowme**
**nt funds**
**to nearest £**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**When due**
**(optional)**
**01 April 2021**
Date of
approval
16-Nov-2021| |---|---|---|---|---| ||||**end of**|| |||||| ||**Details**|**Unrestricte**
**d funds**
**to nearest £**|**Restricte**
**d funds**
**to nearest £**|| ||Cash at Bank|**64,183**|**5,337**|**-**| |||**-**|**-**|**-**| ||**_Total cash funds_**
(agree balances with receipts and
payments account(s))
**Details**
**Details**
Microsoft|**-**
**64,183**
OK
**Unrestricte**
**d funds**
**to nearest £**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**Fund to**
**which liability**
**relates**
General|**-**
**5,337**
OK
**Restricte**
**d funds**
**to nearest £**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**Amount due**
**(optional)**
**91.20**|**-**| |||||**01 April 2021**| |||||| |||||| ||Signature|Print Name
Sally Allen||| |||||| |||||| |||||| |||||| 21 _**Speaking up for the families of children & young people with additional needs in Surrey**_ ## Independent examiner's report on the accounts _Section A Independent Examiner’s Report_ **----- Start of picture text -----**
Report to the trustees/
members of Family Voice Surrey
Charity
On accounts for the
31 March 2021 no (if 1175460
period ended
any)
Set out on pages 20 - 22
**----- End of picture text -----**
I report to the trustees on my examination of the accounts of the above charity (“the Trust”) for the period ended 31 March 2021. **Responsibilities and basis of report** As the charity trustees of the Trust, you are responsible for the preparation of the accounts in accordance with the requirements of the Charities Act 2011 (“the Act”). I report in respect of my examination of the Trust’s accounts carried out under section 145 of the 2011 Act and in carrying out my examination, I have followed the applicable Directions given by the Charity Commission under section 145(5)(b) of the Act. **Independent examiner's statement** I have completed my examination. I confirm that no material matters have come to my attention in connection with the examination which gives me cause to believe that in, any material respect:  accounting records were not kept in accordance with section 130 of the Act or  the accounts do not accord with the accounting records I have no concerns and have come across no other matters in connection with the examination to which attention should be drawn in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached. This report is made solely to the charity's Trustees, as a body, in accordance with Part 4 of the Charities (Accounts and Reports) Regulations 2008. My work has been undertaken so that I might state to the charity's Trustees those matters I am required to state to them in an Independent examiner's report and for no other purpose. To the fullest extent permitted by law, I do not accept or assume responsibility to anyone other than the charity and the charity's Trustees as a body, for my work or for this report. 22 _**Speaking up for the families of children & young people with additional needs in Surrey**_ |**Signed:**
**Name:**
**Relevant professional**
**qualification(s) or body**
**(if any):**
**Address:**

|**Date:**|16-Nov-2021| |---|---|---| ||Janice Matthews|| |||| ||FCA|| |||| ||Menzies LLP, Centrum House, 36 Station Road|| ||Egham, Surrey|| ||TW20 9LF|| |||| 23 _**Speaking up for the families of children & young people with additional needs in Surrey**_ ## **Appendix: Structure and Governance** **We are constituted as a membership organisation, now with over 2400 members. Membership is open to anyone who is interested in furthering our purpose and who, by applying for membership, has indicated their or its (if a corporate body) agreement to become a member and acceptance of the duty of members. Our constitution is available on request and sets out the rights and responsibilities of our members.** The charity also has a Board of Trustees who manage the affairs of the charity and may, for that purpose, exercise all the powers of the charity. We hold an Annual General Meeting of the members, at which the Trustees present their Annual Report and Accounts. We always welcome new members and details of how to sign up can be found on our website and sign up leaflets. We must maintain a minimum of 3 trustees and are always keen to recruit new trustees. We welcome applications from parent carers of children with SEND, as well as people who have experience in the running of small charities, or with finance/treasurer, HR or fundraising skills, and people who have worked in Education, Health or Social Welfare particularly if with children with SEND. In particular, we welcome applicants from diverse ethnic, religious or other minority interest groups. The trustee board provide steer for the charity, ensuring that operations team develop strategies and activities that will allow Family Voice to meet its objectives. While day to day operations are led by the CEO with guidance from Head of Business Planning and Development and Business and Engagement Manager as required, strategic decisions are taken as proposals to the trustee board for sign-off. Our constitution sets out the objectives of the charity (as described in the “Introduction” of this report) and the methods for recruitment and appointment of new trustees, and the general running of the charity. The Trustees have considered Charity Commission guidance on the provision of public benefit. The Trustees believe that FVS provides a public benefit to individuals with a special education need and/ or disability, their carers, their families and the local community through the services provided to them. In addition, the services benefit public services by providing support not provided elsewhere. These services add value to the current statutory education, health and social care services, whilst providing value for money. Major risks as identified by trustees have been reviewed and systems established to manage them. Any organisational risks are identified and discussed as a regular monthly agenda item. All trustees give their time voluntarily and receive no remuneration or other benefits. We have a Risk Register which is updated and checked on a regular and ongoing basis. Additional policies include: Code of Conduct, Confidentiality, Data Protection, Equal Opportunities, Lone Working, Safeguarding and Data Protection. All have regular annual review dates. 24 _**Speaking up for the families of children & young people with additional needs in Surrey**_ **----- Start of picture text -----**
TRUSTEE BOARD
CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER
HEAD OF BUSINESS PLANNING
& DEVELOPMENT
PARTICIPATION PARTICIPATION ENGAGEMENT BUSINESS
MANAGER MANAGER MANAGER MANAGER
BUSINESS
PROJECT WORKERS
ASSISTANT
11 DISTRICT & BOROUGH COORDINATORS
FVS MEMBERS
**----- End of picture text -----**
The business support team (in green) are responsible for day to day business processes and event management. They keep us running! The operations team (in blue) work in two broad ways: our participation managers work with local area partners to inform them of issues facing parent carers. They are involved in strategic meetings, have input into some policy documents, work with partners on messaging, all in a wide range of areas pertaining to SEND. Our coordinators work with our members, gathering their stories to be collated as evidence to strengthen the voice of the participation managers, and supporting members in a variety of ways. These include providing a space to talk and get mutual support, organising speaker events and signposting to local organisations where needed. **----- Start of picture text -----**
25 Speaking up for the families of children & young people with additional needs in Surrey
**----- End of picture text -----**
Work with us to improve the future of children with disabilities or additional needs. We can’t achieve this without your support. **Join us and add your voice to ours. Together, we’re stronger.** Family Voice Surrey Connect House Kingston Road Leatherhead Surrey KT22 7LT **Charity number:** 1175460 **Tel:** 01372 705708 **Email:** contact@familyvoicesurrey.org **Website:** www.familyvoicesurrey.org www.facebook.com/familyvoicesurrey @FVSurrey