Who We Are

Rachel

I’m Rachel. My lovely and brilliant young son has Down syndrome. We have been lucky so far: he is in a really supportive mainstream primary school with an ECHP and the help of great teacher staff and a lovely teaching assistant. We came back to the UK quite recently having been living and working overseas. So I now really want work with the other parents and carers in this group to help create a constructive partnership with Local Authorities and make sure that all children and young people with SEND living in Staffordshire have the best possible support and can live their best lives.

Deb

Hi, my name is Deb and I am a SEND parent of two amazing boys, one of them has Autism. I have real life experience of how our SEND children have to navigate around the NHS, mainstream Education, the LA and how hard it is for them to be accepted to fit in to ‘the norm’ and just letting you know we have all survived so far. I joined the Staffs PCf to work together with this amazing group of like-minded parents and carers to try to take words like, ‘Battle’, ‘Fight’, and ‘misunderstood’ out of our lives for everyone and help turn it around to the words ‘listened to’, ‘understood’ and ‘accepted’ to make a brighter future for our wonderful unique children and their families.

Amanda

Hello, my name is Amanda and I am mum to three children 19,17 and 15. My 19 year old was diagnosed with dyslexia and dyscalculia. My 15 year old was born with a heart defect and at 10 had a diagnosis Autism. I am now a full time carer for my son following an autistic burnout and we are in the progress of returning to school on a part-time timetable. I was an Early Years and Key Stage 1 teacher for 20+ years, and so during that time worked with a number of children with SEND and a spoke to variety of providers and support people connected to them. As a result of my experience I have an insight to the workings of the school system with regards to main schools and SEND. As a parent of a child diagnosed with Dyslexia and Dyscalculia I attended SEN reviews throughout Primary and Secondary School. As a parent of a child diagnosed with ASD, I have experience of school refusal, autistic burnout and the struggles that come getting the right help and support for these.

Support Staffordshire

StaffsPCF run under the umbrella of Support Staffordshire – a local voluntary sector organisation. Support Staffordshire Consultancy deal with our administrative tasks leaving us to deal with the strategic side of sharing parent views to service providers.