Family Matters Institute (FMI)
Key Facts
Location
Project Criteria
Project funding
£115,300
Funding round
Family Matters Institute is an educational charity motivated by the Christian faith to support and strengthen family life across the UK. We work in partnership with church, faith and community groups to deliver a range of services, training and materials. We were set up in 1998.
We are using the Parenting Fund to deliver parenting support to parents of pre-teen and teenager children that should improve Parent-Teenage communication. The project will target four groups of parents:
- disabled or deaf mothers and fathers
- black minority ethnic parents
- parents in the community via church or faith group
- parents in the workplace.
Aims:
To raise awareness of the importance of parenting education in the community.
To provide affordable access to accredited (Open College Network) facilitator training to improve parent-teenage communication.
To enable parents of pre-teen and teenage children to develop confidence and skills in communication with their young people.
To build the capacity of voluntary and statutory organisations to reach and support parents in the four identified groups.
This will be done by:
- a series of taster sessions to encourage and inspire parents, voluntary and statutory organisations to work together in setting up groups. Our 'Flat Pack' materials will be introduced and discussion groups will explore issues such as: teenage sexuality, teenage pregnancy, self-esteem and body image, internet safety, alcohol, drugs, peer pressure and media influence
- expansion of Flat Pack Parent material to fit the needs of the five groups of parents. This could include translation into other languages such as Urdu or British Sign Language and producing materials that reflect parents needs covering, for example, topics such as racism, bullying, faith and cultural issues
- providing an extensive, inclusive and accredited training programme (OCN Level 2) to facilitate groups of parents of teenagers. Copy-right free supporting materials will be provided for trainees
- supporting parents to continue as a self-developing group running their own programmes. Assist them in making best use of skills and expertise within the community
- talking to organisations about expanding the role of parenting in the workplace. Included will be working with Human Resources departments on work based parenting education for employees
- dissemination of the work via an end of project event/conference.