We’re a busy national network and have many ways that we work and support professionals in their participation practice. A key part of what we do is our commitment to your professional development.
Keeping You Updated
We keep professionals up to date on the latest sector developments through the Making Ourselves Heard newsletter, forum and twitter.
The forum provides a central hub for professionals to share expertise and ideas. We celebrate disabled children and young people’s participation and facilitate information sharing and practice development. We create opportunities for practitioners to come together and identify common challenges, look at practice standards and share learning and evidence on participation.
Our newsletter to professional summarises the latest developments each month and details opportunities you can share with young people.
To stay up to date please register on our contact us page here.
First-class Training Opportunities
We offer a range of different training sessions designed to support you to engage and communicate with children and young people.
Our training focuses on understanding the ‘how to’, using practical tools and overcoming challenges. The workshops we host are participative and allow you to debate, discuss and learn by doing. We will support delegates to plan, deliver and evaluate your participation work; and how to support young people to get involved in decision-making.
Our training is aimed at professionals working with disabled children and young people: local authority SEND teams, service providers, commissioners, voluntary sector services. We can tailor our participation training to your needs.
We can also deliver training directly to groups of children and young people about the changes to SEND law and their right to be involved in decisions about their support.
Delegates at our past events have rated their confidence level in working with children and young people as 99% good or excellent as a result of attending our training days.
We offer both virtual and face to face training to suit all needs. Our virtual training is interactive and inclusive, expect to get to grips with the latest online platforms!
For more information on our training opportunities drop us an email with the topic or theme you want to develop [email protected].
[The workshop was] really enjoyable and informative. Provided a lot of food for thought and increased my motivation to ensure the voice of children and young people are at the heart of all we do, and challenge all stakeholders to ensure co-production becomes embedded in every day practice, policy and strategy.
Professional
Resources
We produce a range of practice-based resources and where possible we co-produce resources and training with disabled young people. One of our most popular resources is the Your Rights, Your Future tool kit which helps practitioners help children and young people make sense of the new SEND laws. Click here to read and download all of our resources. (link to resources pages)
Young People’s Groups
Central to developing our practice is our work with young people. We are really proud to have worked with some fantastic young people over the years, to read about our current young people’s group FLARE please click here and past young people groups please click here.
I’m so happy to have the opportunity to work not only with NCB but also be able to work with such a wonderful team. I’ve grown so much since joining FLARE and every single member of the team has inspired me in some way. The amount of opportunities you give to young people is absolutely amazing.
The whole participation team is full of the kindest people and I feel privileged to be able to work with you all. It truly feels like a little family at NCB.
Young person
Gain Exclusive Insight into Best Practice
We have excellent links with organisations within the sector and as part of our regular updates, we look to highlight case studies that shine the spotlight on what our colleagues and other organisations are doing particularly well. In the past, we have featured KIDS and Core Assets as our case studies.
Have you done some fantastic participation work that you want to shout about? Then let us know - we would love to feature you in our national newsletter seen by hundreds of colleagues in the sector.
We would love to know how your project is helping disabled children and young people:
- Make decisions that affect their lives
- Speak out about issues that affect all children and young people
- Develop their local communities
- Plan services that they use
If you're interested in showcasing your project get in touch with one of our team at [email protected]