About Us

South Glos Parent Carers (SGPC) is the local parent carer forum, representing and supporting parent carers of children and young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) in South Gloucestershire. Driven by a desire to make a difference for every SEND family in South Gloucestershire, SGPC work with service providers across the education, health and social care sectors to ensure that the challenges families face are understood, so that together, positive changes can be made. 

SGPC offer support to parent carers through a variety of online and drop-in support sessions as well as workshops on a range of SEND topics. The SGPC team are all parent carers themselves, so they truly understand the SEND journey and its challenges. From their personal experiences and those of their community, they have gained valuable insight, information and a wealth of SEND knowledge.

Our Story

2009 WHERE IT ALL BEGAN... our local Parent Carer Forum was born when three mums of children with SEND (including our CEO, Rachel) formed ‘Our Voice Matters’ (now SGPC). This was part of a government initiative to create Parent Carer Forums throughout the country that would represent the voice of parents in the design of services.

These mums wanted to make a difference to every SEND family in South Glos. They wanted services to hear the voices of parent carers, so they could begin to understand the challenges that children and their families were facing and work together to make change.

Over the years we have grown from strength to strength and our timeline shows some of our highlights, celebrating our journey from humble beginnings to supporting a vibrant community of over 3,400.

South Glos Parent Carers area covered

Our Timeline

About us timeline
2010

2010
Spreading the word

We ran our first conference at the BAWA, where we shared information about the importance of co-production and participation with associates. Since then, we have run several conferences and events for our SEND community and associates.

2011

2011
New name, same mission

Our Voice Matters changed to South Glos Parents and Carers (SGPC). Community links were strengthened, and more families were supported when we introduced coffee mornings to our schedule of SEND seminars, conferences and meetings with service providers.

2012

2012
Working for change

We continued to attend meetings to represent the parent carer’s voice, as well as continuing to provide conferences, seminars, focus groups and events. Our database increased and so did our volunteers.

2013

2013
Nurturing growth

SGPC became a Community Interest Company (CIC). In this year we also expanded our services with the additions of our Little Treasures stay and play group for Early Years families and Jigsaw coming under our umbrella (now independently run).

2015

2015
A listening ear

We introduced a counselling service to provide individual support to parent carers, while continuing our other support through magazines, coffee mornings, a stay and play group, events, conferences, workshops and seminars. Our closed Facebook group was also set up to support parent carers.

2016

2016
Here to help

We created our first Really Useful Guide, a helpful resource for families in our community containing information, tips and signposting to help parents at all stages of their SEND journey.

2018

2018
Empowering parents

We listened to the views of our community and designed an offer of services to help empower them and better support them on their SEND journey. This included the development of workshops and a telephone support line.

2019

2019
Lots to celebrate

We had a triple celebration; our 10th birthday coincided with the launch of our Community Base in Kingswood, as well as national recognition of our achievements when we were awarded “Excellence in Parent Carer Participation” at Contact’s national award ceremony, held at The Palace of Westminster.

2020

2020
Challenging times

The toughest year yet for us and our community when the Coronavirus pandemic brought children’s mental health to the fore and our services were needed like never before. Responding to Covid restrictions, we adapted our services and continued reaching families by moving our support groups online, navigating difficult times together.

2021

2021
In this together

The impact of Covid-19 was monumental for the SEND community and parent carers needed us more than ever before. In order to meet the growing demand for support, we expanded our offer to run both online and in-person support sessions and events.

2022

2022
A busy year

As well as welcoming new members to the team, we opened an extra venue for our Little Treasures stay and play group; we delivered a series of autism-themed workshops in partnership with North Somerset and Bristol Parent Carer Forums and our 360° Outreach Project was launched, working with schools to support parents in identifying and meeting their child’s needs. And not forgetting our rebrand and website launch!

2023

2023
Onwards and upwards

Our website development continued, with an Associates section launched, along with a growing library of resources for families. We were also thrilled to have been awarded a grant by the National Lottery Community Fund to help us continue our important work and reach more families across South Glos.

2024

2024
15 years of SGPC

We celebrated this milestone with our wonderful community by holding parties at our Little Treasures stay and play groups and at our Community Base, as well as listening events in libraries. We also kicked off a £15,000 fundraising campaign to ensure we continue to support and represent families for the next 15 years and beyond.

Celebrating 15 years

This year we’re celebrating our 15th anniversary of supporting and representing parent carers of children and young people with SEND in South Glos.

SGPC celebrating 15 years

Our mission

To represent the collective voice of our community, working together with service providers to shape great services and achieve positive change.

mission

Our vision

To grow a well-informed, empowered, supportive community of SEND families, where every individual’s needs are anticipated, identified, and met, enabling them to reach their potential.

vision