Situation:
The Parents’ Forum was established in January 2024 as a means of the NHSCT Children and Young People’s service pro-actively engaging those who have had involvement with our division. The aim of the Parent’s Forum is for a group of staff and service users to meet regularly to help the Trust gain a greater understanding of parent’s experiences of children’s services and help identify any opportunities for future learning.
Service-user feedback via the Parent’s Forum is also sought on specific processes (including Child Protection), leaflets, and contribution forms to draw upon and gain from their invaluable perspective.
It is hoped that their input can assist Children’s Services in effecting positive change to the services they provide and the service-user experience including:
• How service users feel they are valued by staff within children’s services
• The quality of the service provided to promote the core values of the Trust- working together, excellence, compassion and openness and honesty
• An increased understanding of processes, the reason for them and what is expected from parents / carers and from the professionals that work with their family
Quality improvement is encouraged across all areas of the Trust within all services.
Task:
Gaining insight from service users themselves to ensure that processes within children’s services are as user friendly as possible is particularly important.
Processes should recognise that involvement with children’s services can be very difficult and emotive for carers and parents. They should be provided with every opportunity to understand what is happening and why, the expectations upon them and on the professionals involved with their family
It is hoped that the Parent’s Forum promotes collaborative working in keeping with the core values of the Trust.
NHSCT recognise that even making minor changes / adjustments to the language used in leaflets or (to) documents can encourage parents to provide their views and participate in processes. This does not require amendments in the law or legislation. Such changes are therefore attainable and can be both effective and empowering.
Action:
Membership of the Parent’s Forum
Staff
Joanne Best – Principal Practitioner
Joanne Murray – Team Leader, Family Assessment Service
Julie Smith- Senior Social Work Practitioner, Family Assessment Service
Service Users
Service users who have had experience of services within Family Support and Intervention Teams, Looked After Children’s teams and Children’s disability teams will be invited to attend.
Some service users to date have experienced services as a child themselves and subsequently as a parent. A range of experiences helps enhance the forum as all members have their own individual experiences to contribute.
The Parent’s Forum operates on an ongoing (service) basis. It is anticipated that its membership will be fluid, with continuous recruitment necessary, as participants circumstances change.
A group of service users were initially recruited through their involvement with the Family Assessment Service.
There was then a Facebook post in the Summer 2025 to promote an interest and further parents were recruited.
Recruitment is also assisted by frequent reminders to Senior Social Workers and progress will also be fed back to Senior Management Team which will also serve as a reminder that ongoing recruitment will be required.
A leaflet and poster explaining the Parent’s Forum has been created to encourage new participants who have experienced a range of different services within children’s services. It is currently being printed.
Currently, Joanne Murray and Julie Smith (Family Assessment Service) visit any prospective participants identified to explain the group and answer any concerns or questions they might have.
Format of meetings:
The Parents Voices Forum meets approximately monthly:
- Venue and refreshments booked
- Venue in a neutral place rather than a social services building (currently Clotworthy House, Antrim)
- Transport is provided by staff for those who need it (where possible)
- Group contract has been written and is provided to any new members as they commence
- Agenda distributed at the start of each meeting
- Use of flipcharts as a visual aid in group discussions
- Specific documents/leaflets reviewed or created by the group at request of senior management team
- Group activity each meeting
- Date set for next meeting at the end of each meeting
The staff members involved meet every month to plan and set an agenda for each meeting, an agenda is then written and distributed.
Any feedback from the meetings is recorded either onto any specific documents being reviewed or composed or typed and saved in the Parent’s Forum electronic folder.
Joanne Best –Principal Practitioner provides the feedback from the forum to SMT and is provided with any specific pieces of work.
Result:
The Parent’s Voices Forum has already provided invaluable service-user feedback / perspective on specific processes (including Child Protection), leaflets and contribution forms.
To date we have:
• Provided feedback on pre-birth risk assessment leaflet for parents
• Devised a Parental contribution form for Child Protection Case Conferences.
• Feedback on how to make social services buildings more user friendly
• Feedback on a parent’s leaflet for the Rowan Centre
Feedback offered has already been adopted, demonstrating that the forum is making a difference, and is not merely tokenistic.
In addition, the service user’s involvement with social work staff including their positive and negative experiences have been collated.
This information has been provided to the training team to share with both student social workers and newly qualified staff.
