Family Matters (360G-SCVO-a0gb000000QAboiAAD)

We would like to employ our Family Worker for an extra 7.5 hours per week to allow her to engage with more parents and teachers. Since Family Matters began in May 2014 our worker, who is a child and family specialist with experience in early learning, nursery, outdoor play and child development has worked alongside families met through nursery, school, holiday play schemes and out of school family activities. Through building relationship she develops trust and can tailor her input according to what she observes or hears. Families help shape programmes. Recent examples would be planning and delivering the summer play scheme and recent cookery on a budget groups and 'bite size' parenting tips, allowing parents (or carers) to acknowledge an area of difficulty, for example bedtime, and explore various possible solutions with peer support and input from the worker . Parents gain confidence and then suggest a further topic of interest and also suggest to friends that Family Matters might help them. She meets families one-to-one at home as well as in small groups. Because she is not part of any statutory service and meets parents in a variety of settings and offers very small informal interventions she is able to build up relationships, signpost, support and encourage parents to be more confident. As she becomes known, Head Teachers can make informal referrals, families can self-refer and friends support one another. She is working to build peer support and encourage volunteers to take leadership roles in parent and toddler and play scheme and craft and cooking groups. The person-centred approach taken is special and we have had success in engaging with parents who have very low self confidence and tend to be wary of positive parenting courses. We offer a much lower threshold for engagement and so build confidence.