Parentline Plus Hampshire
Key Facts
Location
Project Criteria
Contact
Volker Buck
Email
Project funding
£135,000
Funding round
Parentline Plus provides a holistic range of support for parents recognising that parents need and make use of differing amounts of support at different stages. Our intensive outreach provision enables us to reach the more isolated of parents in a variety of ways. for some parents a conversation with an outreach worker, provision of leaflets and information about our Helpline is sufficient. Other parents will need more intensive personalised support individually or in groups. We aim to reach 3,600 parents in Southampton over the life of the project by providing a mix of locally based support reinforced by local media work which gets the message through to many more parents, together with the national offer of our Helpline. A parenting fund grant would enable us to strengthen inter-agency working to expand targeted and seamless parent support in the 5 Neighbourhood Partnership areas of the city, reaching many more parents in areas of identified need and social deprivation to strengthen parenting skills and reduce parental isolation and stress using an intensive and personalised approach.
- expand provision of our courses and workshops in the city, delivering programmes in response to need and reaching parents of 8-14 year olds whose behaviour is causing concern. The support provided will comprise outreach work to engage parents, 24 individual support sessions, 22 workshops and 18 course averaging 5 sessions. We will work closely with extended schools, Brookvale Adolescent Unit, Education Welfare and YOT as part of the social inclusion and respect agendas to reach and support parents. Course content will focus on building communication and understanding in the family through listening, developing self esteem in both children and adults, negotiating and holding boundaries, keeping children safe and encouraging respectful relationships. To embed ongoing parenting support in local communities, we will recruit and train 10 participating parents as outreach volunteers to undertake parent to parent outreach, which we know is one of the most effective ways of reaching parents.
- undertake targeted work with teenaged parents, working closely with TPU, children centres and health visitors to identify and engage young people. The support provided will comprise outreach work to engage teenage parents, individual support sessions, facilitated support groups and courses. Support will focus on developing self esteem in young parents, understanding the needs of babies and young children, building close relationships with babies and young children, keeping children safe, and play. Facilitated support groups will aim to build networks of support between the young parents that can continue outside the group setting.
- extend parenting support into identified BME communities in the city. We will work with local groups to identify bilingual parents from different ethnic backgrounds who would be interested in training as parent support workers with Parentline Plus to deliver group and individual support. We will provide training to a minimum of 2 BME parents through co delivery, training days and mentoring. Working with these BME parent support workers, we will deliver parenting support to BME parents. This will comprise outreach work to engage parents, individual support sessions, workshops and courses. Course content will be tailored to the needs of the groups, focusing on self esteem, developing communication and understanding in the family and negotiating and holding boundaries, as well as 'specialist ' courses on bringing up children in a multi cultural society and dealing with racism.
- create a network of support for fathers, via a mix of individual and group support. We will work closely with the maternity hospital and children's centres, who have requested support from Parentline Plus targeted at fathers. We will provide individual support sessions, facilitated support groups and a 10 week group programme supporting fathers in their role and training them to become buddies to other fathers.