Kulwinder Bola

• Researcher Bedford Borough Council & Bedfordshire, Luton, and Milton Keynes Clinical Commissioning Group (B
• Communicative Participation Network member and co-investigator

Kulwinda Bola is an expert Parent Carer with lived experience of supporting a young person on the Autistic spectrum, with ADHD, Learning Difficulties, and with hearing impairment, within the mainstream sector of society (school, college, and voluntary work settings). She has extensive working links to National Network of Parent Carer Forums, and with the Eastern Region Parent Carer Forum, which she chaired from 2015 – to May 2021. After 18 years as a regional government officer, supporting LAC placement services across 33 London Boroughs, the birth of her child with SEND, changed her focus. Kulwinda re-trained, and worked as a qualitative researcher from 2007-2011. Kulwinda's research at that time focused on health inequalities, linked to organ donation, children with complex needs, and the experience of BAME women accessing health services. Wishing to focus on equity of access to services for families with SEND children, and disability more widely, she moved to working as an Independent Researcher (2011-2019), where she worked with a number of non-for–profit organisations and two national Charites (Contact (a family), and the National Deaf Children’s Society). In 2019, seeking to make research ‘count’ she moved into a Joint Commissioning role specific for SEND services. Kulwinda's post enables her to direct commissioned services across health and social care for children and young people with SEND and their families, so that they receive a ‘needs led’ service, which makes a positive difference in their lives.