Partnership with Parents (PwP) was established in 1994 in response to the then Department for Education and Employment (DfEE)'s Code of Practice on the identification and assessment of special educational needs (SEN).

The SEN & Disability Act 2001 established a statutory duty for LEAs to make arrangements for parent partnership services from January 2002 and the SEN Code of Practice 2001 provides national minimum standards for those services.

In Surrey the PwP Service operates at arm's length from the LEA out of its office base at Furzefield Primary School in Merstham.

The Service 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 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

• 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
  

• advice on rights and responsibilities
  

• company at meetings or when visiting new schools
  

• support through the statutory assessment process (statementing)
  

• volunteers to support parents as required (Independent Parental Supporters)
  

• 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
  

• 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
  

In addition to direct work with parents and carers, PwP provides training and support for Independent Parental Supporters (Named Persons). These volunteers, who for the most part are themselves parents of children with SEN, undertake a 6 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 termly Forum is facilitated consisting of voluntary organisation/parent group representatives and senior LEA officers. PwP alsoprovides 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.

A variety of written information is provided for parents, in particular Information Sheets to support the most common enquiries to the Helpline which are sent to parents to reinforce/remind them of the information provided. These information sheets can be accessed by clicking on the information tab on the left.

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