Welcome to the first edition of the Newsletter!

The Early Learning Partnership Project is a unique initiative and the Family and Parenting Institute is delighted to be involved in its delivery.

1. Introduction
2. Over view of progress across all 3 Strands
3. "What a difference a day makes…"
4. The Events Calendar
5. What's new at FPI?

 

1. Introduction

 

WHAT DOES THE PROJECT DO?

The importance of early learning is widely acknowledged and with this in mind the DCSF has been funding the Early Learning Partnership Project (ELPP) since October 2006. The project demonstrates different approaches to identifying and engaging parents of children aged 1-3 who are at risk of learning delay, and support them to get involved in their child's early learning. The focus is on parents who may not otherwise understand the value of their role in their child's early learning, or would not know how to get involved.
The Project has three strands:

Strand 1
Delivery – Demonstrating different approaches to supporting parents' involvement in their child's early learning from ages 1-3 years;
The Family and Parenting Institute are leading a consortium of seven voluntary agencies who will be delivering the project. The lead partners are: Barnardos, ContinYou, Coram Family, FWA, Home-Start, NCH and Pre-School Learning Alliance. These agencies will be working in turn with a number of smaller agencies who will help to deliver 12 complementary tried and tested approaches across 20 localities.

Strand 2
Evaluation - Full evaluation of the different approaches and their replicability.

Strand 3
Workforce Development – up-skilling the workforce to build effective partnerships with parents to support their involvement in their child's early learning.

WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF THE NEWSLETTER?

The project has a short lifespan, that is why it is so important that everybody who has an interest in early learning and they support offered to parents is kept up to date with its achievements and developments on a regular basis. The newsletter also presents and opportunity for you to showcase your work and highlight its impact.
Please help us to make the newsletter as informative and interesting as possible by sending us information about your activities.
We hope you enjoy reading it!

THE FPI PROJECT TEAM

Who's who at Family and Parenting?

Honor Rhodes – is the director of Business Development here at the FPI and is working in an advisory role for the ELPP project and acting as chair for the Advisory board meetings which span across all three strands

Christa McGrath – is the project manager, she took on the role replacing Richard Allen and started on the 1st of May 2007.

Kendra Massey – is working in an administrative role for the project and is also a grants officer for the parenting fund.

Maria Galan – has recently joined us here at FPI and is working with Kendra in an administrative and communication role.

2. Over view of progress across all 3 Strands

 

STRAND 1

Delivery

Barnardos: is working in Northumberland, Newcastle & Bristol, they are partnering Parent Early years Education Package (PEEP). In Bristol they have developed strong partnerships with local commissioners & providing networks and have 20 workers who have been trained in PEEP and in Newcastle PEEP delivery has been carried out in one area.

ContinYou: is working in Leeds, Bradford, Northamptonshire and Leicestershire. They are partnering PenGreen Research to deliver Parents Involvement in their Childrens Learning (PICL). They have also adopted a version of SHARE which has been introduced to work with children under 3. Alongside these developments Telford Thurrock Community Mothers are developing a programme that focuses on the involvement of midwives and health visitors in identifying families at risk.

Coram Family: is working in Camden and Islington. They are using Parents as First Teachers (PAFT), PEAL (NCB) and some One plus One training for underpinning theoretical support for staff. All the staff were trained in both PEAL and One plus One.

Family Welfare Association: is working in Norfolk, Sheffield and Southwark. They are using Home-Start, PAFT and FWA's Newpin Family play programme.

Home-Start: is working with eight of their local schemes as internal partners in Worcestershire and London. Their external partners are One Plus One and Bookstart. They have developed 3 training modules based on relationships, listening to children and developing children's learning.

National Children's Home (NCH): is working in Solihull and are partnering with PAFT and Campaign for Learning. They have managed to recruit more staff than originally thought and thus their delivery has expanded from 3 sessions a month to many more.

Pre-School Learning Alliance: is working in Cumbria and Staffordshire and are partnering with the National Childminding Association (NCMA), PEEP, ICAN and PEAL. PEEP, ICAN and PEAL have been accessed by all staff.

STRAND 2

The Evaluation
The National Evaluation of the ELPP will study the different approaches to parental involvement used by various programmes across England, in order to find out more about ways of supporting parents with their child's early learning. The overall aim is to evaluate different strategies used to involve parents in their children's learning. It will also examine the role of trained staff or volunteers in equipping parents with the skills needed to support their children's learning at home. The study is funded by the Department for Children, Schools and Families and is based at the University of Oxford.

As part of the study, the Oxford Research Team will visit settings around the country which use different approaches to involving parents in their child's early learning. A researcher will visit the setting in the summer of 2007 and carry out interviews with the project manager and other key staff or volunteers, as well as a focus group and some interviews with parents.

We anticipate that the staff interviews will last no longer than an hour. As part of the study, we are visiting family services around the country where staff or volunteers are working with parents. We want to hear about the exciting activities that parents, staff and volunteers are doing with children.
We would like to make a second visit to the setting later in the year to capture the ways the programmes may develop over time, and the impact on families using these services. All the information we collect will be treated in strict confidence.

Settings will not be named as part of the research and all information will be anonymised, stored securely and then destroyed. We are not collecting information on individual children. The evaluation is not an inspection, and we are not assessing individual projects, teams, staff or volunteers. Instead, we are trying to gather as much information as possible on the different approaches that organisations are using to involve parents, and the ways the parents respond to them.

The study is being carried out by Dr. Maria Evangelou, Professors Kathy Sylva and Anne Edwards at the Department of Education, University of Oxford, and Teresa Smith at the Department of Social Policy and Social Work. The initial contact with each setting will be made by a member of the NEELPP Research Team who will also carry out interviews with the project manager, key staff and parents in the project. A researcher will also undertake home visits at a later time. All research team members have been through enhanced Criminal Records Bureau vetting procedures.

If you have any queries about the research or if you would like further information, please contact Kate Coxon, Project Manager on 01865 284095. We would like to take this opportunity to thank you all for your cooperation in letting us spend a few days at your centre. We look forward to working with you further, and finding out more about the ways in which you are supporting families with young children. Your input has been very valuable.

STRAND 3

Workforce Development
National Children's Bureau and Parenting UK:
Starting later than the programme delivery strand, workforce development got under way in February when a consortium of the National Children's Bureau and Parenting UK began work on a 3 strand programme. A central part is the national roll-out of the Parents Early Years and Learning (PEAL) training. This will go to Children's Centre staff via 19 regional events (Brighton and Southampton have already taken place) and to staff in the private and voluntary sector via regional events organised in partnership with the Pre-School Learning Alliance, National Day Nurseries Association and National Childminding Association. There are also separate events for local authority advisory staff. The programme also includes development of the PEAL materials to meet the needs of those specific workforces and some bursaries for practitioners who have already done the training to develop their own good practice examples for the programme's resource pack.

A second element is the provision of funding to 15 voluntary organisations to expand their existing training programmes on parental support for young children's learning. All 15 now have contracts to deliver agreed training programmes for early years practitioners, for community practitioners e.g parents supporting other parents, or for practice development, and there are 20 programmes being delivered in total up to March of next year.

Lastly, the workforce strand includes an element of accreditation of this training against the newly developing national qualifications frameworks. An "accreditation team" headed by Gill Haynes, is working with the CWDC, QCA and awarding bodies to develop accreditation for PEAL and for any of the 15 sub-contracted organisations who would like it.

There are also some "added value" elements to this workforce development strand such as support for sub-contracted organisations to consider the applicability of their approaches to the most excluded groups in the country and also a link consultant working to ensure that PEAL and other training packages have clear lines of connection with the various quality improvement processes being used by local authorities and practitioners. NCB and Parenting UK are keen to ensure that this work adds value to existing initiatives.
Sue Owen, Early Childhood Unit, NCB.

3. "What a difference a day makes…"

 

In this section we share the day to day experiences (triumphs and challenges) from one of the delivery projects.
In this newsletter it is – Home-Start

Home-Start's involvement with the Early Learning Partnership Project has introduced the Home-Start volunteers from 4 London schemes and 4 schemes in Worcestershire to three extra modules of training. The following two extracts from two volunteers in Westminster Home-Start gives a flavour of the benefit that has been noticed already by the volunteers. The first story is told by the Home-Start Co-ordinator and the second by the volunteer herself.

DORCAS' STORY

Dorcas, the volunteer, practically skipped in to the office with excitement about how confident she had become after the 1st session of the ELP training from One Plus One in dealing with difficult relationship issues with her young family. Our code of confidentiality means we can't describe the circumstances in detail, but there were many, many complex issues involved. When I asked Dorcas what she felt made the real difference she said that she felt she had a language she could use that was non threatening and could easily be understood.

The two young parents responded very positively and they did not put up their usual defences. This was particularly true in the case of the young dad. The really positive outcomes for this family were that they did more things together. The dad developed more of a routine and was more supportive whilst the mum said she felt more supported and enjoyed their time outside the home. She felt that they were more like a family. The real surprise was that the dad soon afterwards got a job and they all seemed much happier.
The impact on the volunteer was also huge as she felt that she had really made a difference and that she had enabled these two lovely young people and their baby to move on in a more positive direction for themselves.

CHELVI'S STORY

Inspired by the Bookstart training, I set out on a mission to spread the Bookstart experience among the Home-Start families I am working with. However, what I didn't expect is the transformative effect something as simple as Bookstart can have on the lives of some families. For an example, when I introduced the Bookstart experience to a family, for the very first time during my involvement with the family I saw affectionate and an encouraging interaction between the mother and her two year old son.
During the months I had worked with the family, I witnessed the family's struggle as they coped with the aftermath of years of domestic violence, maternal ill health, poverty, social isolation and social services involvement with the family on the basis of child protection concerns.

For this family the Bookstart experience is more than educational; as well as being a mother-son bonding tool it also provided the resources needed for an enjoyable and stimulating experience for the family. The little boy immediately responded with great joy to the book and drew mother in as well as his older siblings. This came as a complete surprise to me.

As for me, this was an eye–opener as it revealed to me a dimension of the mother's parenting capacity which had been otherwise hidden if not for the Bookstart experience! I took a Bengali/English book as the mom does not read or write English. I came back to the office and fed my experience back with great excitement which lifted everybody and inspired everyone yet again about the project.

4. The Events Calendar (dates for your diary):

 

This is an opportunity to share any up and coming events with the other people who are taking part in this project.

June

Barnardos has organised network meetings for the managers and practitioners on the ELPP.

July

3rd: Barnardos has organised network meetings for the Staff in the South West for the ELPP.
Home-Start ELP Management Board Meeting.
Key agenda item – Dissemination.

August

No activities scheduled

September

Home-Start National Convention – Edinburgh Workshops and Exhibition. To include external and internal partners.

October

2nd – All 3 Strands Advisory Board meeting at the Family and Parenting Institute.

10th – Strand 1 Meeting, with all the primary contacts for the lead partners, at the Family and Parenting Institute.

Barnardos has organised network meetings for the managers and practitioners on the ELPP.
Home-Start Family Learning Week Range of events planned for London and Worcester.

November

Home-Start UK Annual Forum Presentation at internal Annual Forum for Home-Start UK staff & Trustees

December

Planning for Home-Start road show Roll out to the rest of Home-Start schemes

January 2008

Barnardos has organised network meetings for the Staff in the South West for the ELPP
Planning Home-Start On-going Training Module

(At the time this newsletter was created these were all the dates submitted, if you would like to have information about your projects events here please submit them for the next months newsletter!)

5. What's new at FPI?

 

The Family and Parenting Institute, with King's College and Parenting UK, have won the £30m grant from the Department for Children, Schools and Families to provide a new Academy for parenting practitioners.
The new National Academy for Parenting Practitioners (NAPP) will launch in October 2007. It will be a centre of excellence, providing training for those who support parents in the community; and research on what methods work to support parents.

The Academy will deliver:
A National Training Centre to galvanise training and the training infrastructure
An internationally renowned Research Centre
A cutting-edge Centre for Knowledge Transfer and Policy Development

The Family and Parenting Institute believes that health visitors are the key to effective early intervention. So the Family and Parenting Institute has launched a campaign to raise the voice of parents in the debate about the future of health visiting, to protect the future of our unique health visiting service by securing a well funded, well trained universal health visitor network accessible to all parents of children under five with additional help for those who need it most. To find out more about this campaign or to read the whole report please click here

This newsletter will be distributed to all three strands of the project to give everyone the opportunity to see what progress is being made and what else is going on in both your geographical area and your field of work. It will be distributed on a three monthly basis and as this is the first edition we would really appreciate any feedback which you could offer – either improvements of suggested content. Please do send in information about the work going on in your areas and it will be included in this newsletter and will help us to raise the profile of the important work which is going on!

Please contact:
Kendra Massey
Grants Officer/Administrator
Family and Parenting Institute,
430 Highgate Studios,
53-79 Highgate Road,
London, NW5 1TL.
Tel: 020 7424 3462
Fax: 020 7485 3590
<massey@familyandparenting.org>

Last updated: 29th November 2007 at 11:11:19