Every Local Authority (LA) has to make arrangements for a parent partnership service in their area. Partnership with Parents (PwP) was set up in 1994.

PwP aims to ensure that parents are able to play an informed part in any decisions about the educational provision made to meet their son or daughter's special educational needs and to build partnerships between parents, the Local Education Authority (LEA) and schools.

We do this by providing information, advice and support to parents of children with SEN at all stages of their child's school life, from pre-school early diagnosis through to school-leaving at 16 or 19 and for those with learning difficulties and/or disabilities to 25. The PwP Service offers:

• a confidential Helpline for parents - a Parent Partnership Adviser will respond to your call or email within 48 hours;

• verbal and written information;

• help to complete forms and to understand complex documents and reports*;

• information sessions and conferences for parents' groups;

• advocacy and mediation*;

• training and workshops;

• advice on rights and responsibilities

• support at relevant meetings in school or with the LA (e.g. reviews at school, Annual Reviews)*;

• support through the statutory assessment process (statementing)

• volunteer Independent Parental Supporters (see below)*;

• regular surgery sessions at different venues in the county;

• information about Surrey County Council's procedures for the identification and assessment of SEN;

• support through exclusion for parents of children with SEN*; and,

• where appropriate, referral on to statutory or voluntary organisations working with relevant agencies to support parents who have difficulty accessing services, perhaps because English is an additional language, because of their culture, or because they have learning difficulties themselves

* Subject to time, staff/volunteer availability and need

In addition to direct work with parents and carers, PwP provides training and support for Independent Parental Supporters. These volunteers, who for the most part are themselves parents of children with SEN, undertake a 4 week course. On successful completion of the training the volunteers are able to provide one-to-one support to parents whose children are being assessed for SEN.

A large part of PwP's function is to build and improve partnerships between parents, schools, the LEA, voluntary organisations and parents' groups. A twice yearly Forum is facilitated consisting of voluntary organisation/parent group representatives and senior LEA officers. PwP also provides training and information workshops across the county to raise awareness of the issues faced by parents/carers of children with SEN and contributes to the training of LEA and school staff.

PwP also works closely with the LEA to ensure that systems used are as parent-friendly as possible.

Calls to the PwP Helpline are very varied and can range from parents who have slight concerns about the progress their child is making in school and who are not certain who they should talk to about this, to parents of children with profound and multiple disabilities who feel that their child requires specialist 24-hour provision. Our approach to all callers is to provide them with the information and advice they require in order to make and own any decisions necessary, to explore all possible options with them and to assist them to work on a more equal basis with the professionals who are making provision for their child. We are constantly looking at how we can best promote the service to all of Surrey's diverse communities.

We provide a variety of written information for parents, including Information Sheets to support the most common enquiries to the Helpline. These information sheets can be accessed by clicking on the 'Information' tab on the left.