About the Parent/Carer Panel
Are you interested in being part of our Family Hubs Parent and Carer Panel? We need the help of local residents who use our services currently or may do in the future to make sure that Family Hubs are designed to meet the needs of our local community.
The purpose of the parent/carer panels is to:
Ensure local parents/carers play a key role in designing and continuously improving family services
Enable the voice of local parents/carers including those whose voices are seldom heard
Ensure Family Hubs are designed for inclusion and meet the needs of the diverse communities that live in Sunderland
Ensure that the panel is representative of Sunderland residents who have a wide range of lived experience
What’s involved?
As a member of the Parent Carer Panel you will help shape how services for families are delivered and be a valued part of Family Hubs development. You will meet new people in your community and have the opportunity together to build Family Hubs that meet families’ needs. You may want to join for your own personal development, or to share your experiences of accessing services for families in Sunderland and how they could be developed.
Panel meetings will be agreed at a time and place that works best for the members of the panel. The meetings are likely to be at least every six weeks for up to two hours and can be either face to face, online or a hybrid to enable participation.
What support will I get to be involved?
We want to enable accessibility as much as possible so we will discuss with you what you need to participate. A few examples of what we can offer includes creche/childcare for meetings where necessary, travel expenses to meetings, refreshments in meetings, interpreting services, rewards and recognitions. We will support with any other accessibility requirement to enable you to fully participate in meetings/training.
What happens after I apply?
If you are keen to join the panel we will send you an expression of interest form for you to complete. Once we receive your completed expression of interest form, you will be contacted by a member of the team to arrange an initial telephone call where we’ll tell you more about the panel and what we are looking for and discuss if being on the panel would work for you. During the call we will tell you about the work done by the panel and how the Family Hubs support the panel members. We will also talk about the experiences you can bring to the panel, and address any accessibility needs you may have.
Please be aware that submitting an expression of interest form does not guarantee you will be selected to be on the panel.
Participants will be selected to ensure that the panel is representative of Sunderland’s diverse communities and circumstances.