East Sussex Parent Carer Forum - ESPCF

05/08/2026

🌞 Hot day, warm welcome - we had a great time at St Nicks Nursery's summer fête yesterday afternoon in St Leonard's-on-Sea!

Holly was there for ESPCF (with her son roped in to help on badge making duty 🙏🏼)
chatting to families between rounds of giant Tetris Tumble - including some VERY competitive parents and teenagers!) 😅

Lots of lovely conversations, including about starting school, speech and language support, and what real, community-based, non-judgemental help can look like - support that adapts to what families actually need, not the other way round.
Everything we hear from families helps ESPCF in all of our ongoing work to try to make sure local services meet families' needs.

We're working with St Nicks, alongside Silverdale and Greenway Nurseries, as part of the Autism in Schools project, together with the East Sussex Communication, Learning, Autism Support Service (CLASS).

All three nurseries are run by The Fellowship of St Nicholas (FSN) charity, who we hear do brilliant work supporting families across the community - and it showed at the fete, with families sharing with us how much FSN has meant to them.

Thanks for having us What's on at FSN ⭐ Same time next year 🤞🏼

23/07/2026

Sharing this really handy list of places where kids eat for free or for £1, compiled by Money Saving Central. 🙏

Do check the terms & conditions as there may be restrictions on what times the deals are available and minimum adult spend etc.

17/07/2026

Fantastic work by our engagement team member Corinne who this week went along to Bexhill 6th Form College and gave a presentation to over 70 members of staff.

Corinne talked about ESPCF's work and the Autism in Schools project - which the college will be joining in September. Look out for the dates for our parent carer groups as part of this project which we hope to confirm soon.

As well as chatting to staff, it was also a treat to meet the college's therapy dog, Arthur! 🐕

Bexhill College

16/07/2026

* NEW monthly drop-in group in Rye *

For parent carers of children with SEND - special educational needs and disabilities (with or without a diagnosis)

Monday 21st September 2026
10.00 - 12.00, Rye Baptist Church

We're delighted to be starting a new group in Rye for parent carers to come and chat, share experiences, ask questions, and hear about SEND information and resources.

No need to book, just come along anytime during the two-hour session.

Refreshments will be provided and younger children are welcome (age 5 and under - please note parents will need to be responsible for their children at the group).

All the dates for 2026:
Monday 21st September
Monday 19th October
Monday 16th November
Monday 7th December

We'd love to see you there.

14/07/2026

Ali from our engagement team honed her bush survival skills today at the forest school at St Nick's Nursery in St Leonards-on-Sea. It was fab getting stuck in - although we think Steve Backshall's job is safe! (No fires were actually lit due to the hot weather. We were striking a ball of cotton wool in a controlled environment.)

Ali and Corinne from ESPCF were there to chat to parents about SEND - special educational needs and disabilities - to share information, and hear how things are going. One parent carer told us how her son was getting on with alternative provision, and it was great to hear that another parent was going to share some of our info and resources with other families.

We loved joining the session today. Thanks so much for having us.

14/07/2026

Free online workshops this summer for disabled and seriously ill children. Full details and sign-up link in the post.

Are you wondering what the summer holidays will look like for your family?

Family Fund’s Discover Digital summer festival is returning with an exciting new programme of completely free online workshops, designed specifically for disabled and seriously ill children, and their families. We have eight themes, with content designed to help children and young people learn, create and connect from the comfort of home.

Come along and discover:

✨ Storybook Writing with AI
🎨 Digital Drawing with Sketchbook
🎬 Lego Animation
💻 Coding with Scratch
🎵 Song Building with Loops
🖨️ 3D Design
📹 Creating Short Videos
📖 Making Your Own ‘Zine’

If you know someone who would love to explore digital creativity go ahead and secure a free space for them today!

👉https://www.familyfund.org.uk/support/discover-digital/digital-festival/

02/07/2026

The Sussex Parent Carer Forum Collaborative (SPCFC), which ESPCF is part of, today publishes the results of our survey asking parent carers across Sussex about some of the big changes happening in special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) at the moment.

Our report includes the key messages you told us and our recommendations for policymakers. Your views also directly informed our responses to the government's SEND reforms consultation.

We asked you about: the Schools White Paper & SEND reforms consultation; the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Act; proposed changes to NHS integrated care boards (ICBs); and devolution and proposed changes to local government. We also asked how you feel about the formation of the SPCFC, which is the recently-formed partnership between the three parent carer forums in Sussex.

The overwhelming message from the survey responses is that parent carers are anxious and unsure about what the changes will mean for their families.

SEND families regularly report feeling overwhelmed with the stress and struggle of securing appropriate services and support. Now, proposed changes to the provision of health and education, and the organisation of local government, are causing uncertainty and worry that already stretched services will be even further reduced.

Read the full report here:
https://www.espcf.org.uk/changing-landscape-spcfc-report/

Thank you to everyone who took the time to respond. The survey report will be shared directly with the three local authorities and with NHS Sussex. Your voice matters and we want to make sure it's heard.

Read the results of our survey asking parent carers their views about some of the big changes happening in SEND at the moment.

02/07/2026

Ali and Corinne from the ESPCF engagement team are at the mental health and emotional wellbeing conference in Eastbourne today.

This is an event run by East Sussex County Council and is for school staff including leads for mental health, safeguarding, and inclusion, SENCOs and pastoral leads.

We'll be chatting to staff about the priorities, issues, concerns, and hopes we hear about from parent carers of children with SEND (special educational needs and disabilities). Mental health is a huge issue and one that sadly we hear about regularly from SEND families.

We hope to talk with school staff about the work they are doing to better support children and young people's mental health. Ali and Corinne will also highlight the work happening in our school groups which explore ways we can work together to improve the experiences of children with SEND at school.

01/07/2026

Could you and your family help medical students learn about autism?

Time for Autism is an exciting initiative from Brighton and Sussex Medical School where students are paired with a family who has an autistic child or young person.

The programme is looking for new families to take part in East Sussex, ideally up to 60 to 90 minutes from Brighton by car or public transport.

The idea is that medical students will learn more about autism and the impact it has on day-to-day life by getting to know the child or young person and their family. The experience and expertise of the families involved will hopefully help the students to provide better care for autistic people of all ages and their families in the future.

If you are interested in finding out more, please send an email to: [email protected] or visit: https://www.bsms.ac.uk/research/clinical-neuroscience/cds/time-for-autism/time-for-autism.aspx

30/06/2026

* NEXT SESSION COMING SOON *

CAMHS parent carer group
Monday 6th July, 10.00am to 11.30am
ONLINE via Teams

This is a place to ask questions, give feedback, and share information and learning. Anything that can't be answered in the session will be looked into or communicated either in an email or in a subsequent meeting.

For this coming session, there is a request from the Neurodevelopment Service (part of CAMHS) for ideas on topics that you would like to hear parent carers talking about on the new ND Service website. We'll also chat about if anyone would like to be part of recording a short audio clip for the website (absolutely no obligation to do so, of course).

And as always, there will be time to chat about any other topics or queries which you'd like to bring to the session.

The group is open to all parent carers in East Sussex. If you'd like to attend and you aren't already on the mailing list, please send an email to [email protected] and we'll ask the CAMHS participation team to add you.