Yesterday’s conference was run by Barnardo’s and entitled ‘A Day in our shoes……Change Matters’. On the day children and young people with special educational needs from the Bury area took to the stage and were in charge of leading the presentations.

Barnardo’s are currently running some targeted analysis and evaluation on the Special Needs services for young people in the Bury area. They are working with the young people who access these specialised services, and therefore included them in the design and delivery of yesterday’s conference.

It was a really inspiring day and great to hear from the young people themselves and to get a real feel of how life is for them. They were actively involved in all parts of the day including deciding who would feedback on the microphone from each table of delegates, which created some funny moments.

The topics covered included social, health and education and thinking how we would feel if our lives were restricted by having additional needs. This reflective process was really thought provoking and opened up some really interesting conversations on how we can make changes moving forward.

As delegates, we also looked at the different life stages (0-5, 5-10, 10-15, etc.) and looked at how they become impacted with and without additional needs. There was also a chance to make pledges of how we would work differently, and feedback on what we had learnt and how we would apply this in our professional roles.

Well done to all of the young people who led the day, we were very happy to be a part of it and look forward to future events.