One year since our Birmingham conference
On 25th February it will the anniversary of our Birmingham conference. PFAN was launched at the Open Nest Conference in York a few months earlier on the October 15th 2019. In this short time we’ve achieved so much that it’s hard to remember it all!
What have we done
- Published 10 blogs on topics from Why we need parent advocacy to our latest blogs on a presentation to the United Nations Commission for Social Development
- Parents from PFAN have spoken at International events including the ATD Fourth World United Nations Webinar, and national events such as the Association of Child Protection Professionals’ conference
- Carried out consultation for the Nuffield Family Justice Observatory on parents’ experience of remote hearings
- Published two reports on parent’s views: Uncovering the Pain by Gary Clapton and PFAN’s report on remote hearings
- Held a conference in Birmingham and a webinar in Wales
- Made submissions to the UK Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights and England’s Independent Review on Children’s Social Care
- Met with representatives of the Independent Review on Children’s Social Care
- Been in the media on the Today program and in the national press as well as in Community Care
- Met with four local authorities and started to help them plan for parent advocacy
- Developed a wide range of materials on our website
- and much more
What we are planning
- Establish PFAN as a charity
- Hold a gathering for people on the PFAN mailing list to talk about next steps
- Work closely with the five local authorities who have asked us to help them develop parent advocacy
- Do a webinar for Research in Practice on parent advocacy
- Publish two blogs for Research in Practice
- Develop a database of parent advocacy across the UK
- Set up a support group for parent advocates in PFAN
- Have regular newsletters
- and much more