Who our current funders are and the projects they are funding
As an independent Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO), we cannot do our good work without the support of grant funders and others.
FVS’s role as parent carer forum is to inform, shape and monitor services for children with SEND by ensuring that parent carer experience and voices are at the heart of decision making. We achieve this through engagement work with families and participation with the Local Authority, Health and other partners. Our engagement with families is vital to ensure we provide broad collective representation in our participation work with partners. This ensures that our input to decision making is relevant and representative of SEND families in Surrey.
We cannot achieve this important work without funding. Currently we cost approximately £197k annually. We are so grateful to the funders who support us year after year with core grants. We also couldn’t have made the magic happen without the Surrey based grant funders we have successfully applied to annually. In 2021 we were granted funding from The National Lottery Community Fund which is supporting our core costs for 5 years.
Read more about all of our current funders below.
Contact administers, and pays a grant of up to £17,500 available to one parent carer forum in each local authority area of England, funded by the Department for Education (DfE).
The grant is used to strengthen parent carer forums, so that parent carers can participate in the strategic planning and decision-making around services for children and young people with SEND in their area.
As the official parent carer forum for Surrey we apply for this fund annually.
Working with the local authority is key to our work in informing, shaping and monitoring services for children with SEND, ensuring that parent carer experience and voices are at the heart of decision making. This is achieved through a workplan that is developed in partnership with Surrey County Council (SCC) colleagues based on the priorities identified by listening to parent carers as well as those priorities determined by council officers. Once an area of work is identified, we meet to decide on the nature of the participation work, the outcomes we are aiming to influence and what meetings we may be required to attend.
We cannot provide this important participation work without funding which is recognised by SCC. This is addressed through a grant agreement. We are pleased to currently have a three-year agreement in place providing £85,000 annually towards our costs.
The National Lottery Community Fund like to fund great ideas that help communities to thrive. Their longer-term funding is aimed at organisations whose ambitions are shaped by the people they serve.
We are so pleased that we have been successful in receiving 5 years of funding towards our core costs, totalling £407,000. This funding runs from September 2021 to August 2026 and helps ensures that we can continue to provide the engagement work with families and participation with partners.
As an independent voluntary organisation, we are reliant on the support of grant funders and donations. If you would like to help us get the voices of parent carers and their children heard by supporting us, please click on the link to learn more: Donate – Family Voice Surrey