SEND Employment Forum

The forum, hosted by Adviza, brought together a huge diversity of organisations from Buckinghamshire. Employers and training providers, support services, the Council, schools and colleges, as well as young people themselves and parents, all with an invested interest to improve the outcomes for SEND young people in Buckinghamshire.

During the forum, we identified some of the challenges and barriers that prevent young people from reaching their full potential and gaining an apprenticeship, paid employment or supported internship.

We heard from key speakers who talked about their own lived experience of having a disability and how this has affected them, and from providers of supported internships and other training.

We then looked at what this group could do in the next 6 months, a year and 18 months to make a real difference to those young people in Buckinghamshire. An action plan was created to make change happen.

Really positive feedback from those who attended. This included:

• inspirational
• loved Jason’s presentation what a great role model’
• great for networking and sharing
• last minute attendee but very useful
• we heard some great stories today
• would be great to be able to network outside of this meeting’