'SENDing Voices' wins our Time for Action award

Congratulations to the young people from SENDing Voices in Sheffield, England, whose film - also titled SENDing Voices - has won our Time for Action award (sponsored by Swatch) at the Into Film Awards 2026.

This delightfully animated film was made by a group of young people with SEND (Special Educational Needs and Disabilities) who meet regularly as part of an action group called ‘SENDing Voices'. Their film sees five members of the group explaining various experiences they've had, both positive and negative, and reminds the audience of the difficulties that young people with SEND face on a daily basis. The film's upbeat message clearly outlines the ways that, with additional support and simple considerations, all of us can help ease those difficulties.

The SENDing Voices group, which is facilitated by the Youth Voice & Influence Service at Sheffield City Council, meet fortnightly to actively participate in shaping provision, practices, policies, and decisions that affect them.

The 12 young people from SENDing Voices who made the film took part in a series of 15 workshops, where they came up with the concept for the project, decided on the themes, created characters based on themselves, wrote the scripts, recorded voices and designed the animations. The group then teamed up with My Pockets, a production company based in Yorkshire that work to support numerous young filmmaking groups, to help create the animations.

The aim of their film is to help educators - and everyone - to better understand how young people with SEND would like to be communicated with. Once the films were finished, the young people designed a postcard to send to every school in Sheffield that introduced the project and had a QR code linking to the films.

The group also took part in a launch event in Sheffield where they gave speeches introducing and explaining the project to influential people in the city. The project won at the Sheffield Youth Voice Awards and has made a big impact on SEND education in the City.

"We made our films for teachers", explained one of the young filmmakers. "We know they are busy so the films are short and each one helps them and other school staff to understand what school is like for young people with Special Educational Needs. How we need acceptance, understanding and the right kind of support. The stories are all about things that have actually happened to us and give simple and clear ideas about what teachers can do to make things better."