Hampshire SENDIASS Special Educational Needs and Disability Independent Advice and Support Service Hampshire SENDIASS offer information, advice and support on issues relating to a child or young person s special educational needs or disability. The service is free, confidential and impartial. You can click here to watch a video that explains more about how they work with families. Their website is www.hampshiresendiass.co.uk

Sometimes information is not enough. You may want help to gather information, make sense of it and apply it to your own situation. Hampshire SENDIASS is there to provide advice, and they offer this service by email, on the telephone and through work with groups.
Their opening hours are Monday-Thursday 9am-5pm, and on Fridays 9am-4pm. Their telephone number is 0808 164 5504, and their email address is info@hampshiresendiass.co.uk

Further information can be found on the attached flyer.
Please click here to view the flyer and click here to view the poster.

HPCN Hampshire Parent Carer Network
Hampshire Parent Carer Network (HPCN) offers parent/carers of children and young people, aged 0-25 with additional needs (diagnosed or not) or disability, the opportunity to tell the Local Authority, Health and other services, what life is really like.

Joining HPCN
When you join as a member of HPCN, you can access sessions, events and training opportunities. There’s a monthly newsletter full of information and ways to get involved. The best part is you can choose how little or how much you want to be involved. You can complete a survey here and there, come to a local session or join as a parent rep (more on that below!). To join, go to:
https://hpcn.us14.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=2f04c431b9ff23f7fe135d9b0&id=411d1c1d1b

Parent Reps and Steering Group
Parent representatives attend several meetings and workstreams with Hampshire County Council and other key stakeholders such as Health. Parent/carers attend these meetings to give first-hand experience and input to the decision makers- representing the views of parents across Hampshire. Full training is given and the team will support you. If you would be interested in participating directly, please do email participation@hpcn.org.uk for a chat.
There is also a steering group who manage the strategic running of the forum and future direction. Again, if this interests you or you’ d like to find out more, email participation@hpcn.org.uk

Social media
There is a very active facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/HampshireParentCarerNetwork. This page is updated regularly with lots of helpful info like consultations, session dates and more. However, as well as this, there are 8 local pages across the districts in the County. On these pages, parents are able to offer peer support, share experiences and share local information. To find your district, search HPCN Share Together followed by your district (eg: New Forest, Havant, East Hants)

Events
HPCN run regular events to support parent/carers and to share ideas experiences. For the Autumn term, all events are taking place online. Full details of events can be found on their website: http://www.hpcn.org.uk/events-meetings/

These include:
• Get Togethers A way to meet and share ideas with other parents in your local area over tea or coffee. With occasional guest speakers, these sessions are largely to allow you to have an opportunity to have your say in a relaxed environment. http://www.hpcn.org.uk/what-we-do/
• Future in Mind For parents with children or young people who are struggling with their mental health. If your child is attending or waiting to attend CAMHS, then these meetings allow you to share strategies and experience with other parents and keep up to date with CAMHS.
http://www.hpcn.org.uk/information/
• Meet the SEN Team An opportunity to meet representatives from Education, Health and Social care to ask your questions.
• Workshops Training and workshop opportunities to learn more about matters such as the EHCP process, annual reviews etc.

Our SEN Information Report can be found here.