Your Voice Matters: How We Represented Oxfordshire SEND Families to the DfE

What We Shared with the DfE: Your Feedback, Our Priorities

In July 2025, Oxfordshire Parent Carers Forum (OxPCF) presented to the Department for Education as part of their stocktake visit. Through our latest survey, which gathered 133 responses from parent carers across Oxfordshire, we shared honest feedback highlighting both ongoing challenges and areas where things are beginning to improve.

We took a snapshot of the survey responses to share with the DfE, but the survey remains open. An Ofsted revisit is expected soon, so we want to hear from as many of you as possible.

Key Themes from Our Survey

• Education: EHCP quality and timeliness, mainstream inclusion, and communication from OCC teams remain the top concerns.

• Health: Families reported long waiting times for CAMHS mental health support, diagnostic assessments, and occupational therapy services.

• Social Care: Access to and quality of out-of-school activities and support from children’s social care are still issues raised by many.

How Parent Carers Feel About Progress

Our survey explored views across the five Priority Action Plan themes. The overwhelming message was: while some improvements are being made, many families are still not experiencing meaningful change in their day-to-day lives.

For example:

• Over half of respondents said there has been no improvement or things feel worse in terms of being included in decision-making.

• Many noted continued difficulties with joint working between services, especially regarding communication.

• EHCP processes continue to be described as slow and complex.

• Gaps remain in holiday club provision and respite support.

• Families report a lack of visible impact from leadership and strategy work.

Our Recommendations to the DfE

We highlighted the need for:

• Genuine Co-Production: Engagement must feel genuine, not tokenistic.

• Clearer Communication and Accountability: Services need to work together better, and families need clear, accessible information.

• Building Trust and Consistency: Families need reliable services with clear points of responsibility when things don’t work as they should.

You can view the full presentation by clicking the link below:

OxPCF Presentation DfE July 2025.pdf

Download PDF • 3.04MB

Does This Reflect Your Lived Experience?

If what we’ve shared doesn’t feel true to your family’s experience, please let us know — we want to make sure we are representing parent carer voices as accurately and fully as possible.

• Fill in our survey: https://www.menti.com/alxnvajpnpo8

• Email us with your comments: info@oxpcf.org.uk

• Complete our feedback form: https://bit.ly/OXPCF

Your input helps ensure we are truly representing parent carer voices across Oxfordshire.