Centre for Fun and Families – Parallel Groups
IYPP PROJECT
1. Context of the Project
1.1 Service Context
The Centre for Fun and Families (CFF) was set up in 1990. The Centre is a registered national charity based in Leicester. We are a voluntary organisation, independent of any statutory or government department.
1.2 Aims and Ethos
The Centre’s aim is to offer support and assistance to any families with children aged 0-17 years experiencing difficulties in managing behaviour, in order to avoid or repair relationship or communication breakdown.
The CFF are committed to offering a free service directly to parents and carers from all sections of the community. We take referrals from a wide range of professionals and agencies e.g. GP, Education Welfare Service, Social Health and Care, Community Mental Health Service, CAMHS, Health Visitors, Teachers, etc. Parents can also self refer to us. 80% of our referrals are from disadvantaged families (for example lone parents, parents with mental health issues, ethnic minorities, low income, domestic violence issues etc).
The underpinning ethos of the parenting groups is to make the groups accessible to parents and carers from diverse social, cultural, and economic backgrounds, to encourage parents/carers to believe that they are the experts about their young people and to create a supportive environment with other parents/carers and facilitators so they can be empowered to find their own solutions to difficulties.
The Centre offers 3 group programmes, the Fun and Families, positive parenting programme for parents/carer of 0-10 year olds, the Living With Teenagers (LWT) Programme for parents of 11-17 year olds and the “Avoiding Conflict With Adults” (ACWA) programme aimed at young people who are getting into conflict with adults, peers or authority figures, because of their behaviour.
1.3 Parenting Strategy
In October 1999 as part of the National Parenting Programme, the Youth Justice Board (YJB) agreed to fund a 3 year project, entitled “The Leicester City and County Parenting and Cognitive Behaviour Project”. The aim of this project was to:
- Train Education Welfare Officers and Youth Offending Team Workers to provide a parenting intervention for parents on parenting orders. The orders were made in either the Youth Court in the interests of preventing re-offending or in Education Proceedings due to non school attendance.
- Offer families (i.e. parents/ carers and their young people aged 11-17 years) experiencing difficulties with anti-social and offending behaviour, assistance to reduce these risks. This assistance was provided in the form of the two related group programmes, namely LWT and ACWA. The ACWA programme was designed and piloted as part of this project in response to parent’s requests that we undertook work with their young people to help facilitate change. It was intended to be run in parallel with the LWT programme.
This project was independently evaluated by The Loughborough University - Centre for Child and Family Research (2002). The evaluation concluded that the CFF programme had led to a 43% overall reduction in behaviours identified as being difficult to manage by parents. It concluded that it was more effective to start the young people’s programme after commencing the parent’s programme. It was found to be easier to attract young people to the programme if a relationship had already been established with their parents/ carers. Participation in the ‘Involving Young People’s Project’ (IYPP) therefore offered a timely way forward for the Centre to develop its established work with parents and young people.
1.4 Over-arching Parenting Strategy in Leicester City and County
Because of the successful model of interagency partnership and the benefit to families of the Leicester City and County Parenting and Cognitive Behaviour Project, it became apparent to all the agencies involved in Leicestershire that the parenting group work intervention needed to continue. As a result an interagency strategy for improving parenting was established, since parenting was considered to be no single agency’s responsibility. The Green paper ‘Every Child Matters’ had placed emphasis on parenting as an issue of priority for all agencies.
This strategy sought to bring together those agencies whose responsibilities lay in supporting children in conflict with their parents, children at the risk of accommodation, school exclusions and offending activity for e.g. Social Care and Health, Youth Offending Service, Child Behaviour Intervention Initiative, Education Welfare Service, Connexions, Housing and Anti-social behaviour teams, Community and Youth Education Services, Crime and Disorder partnerships and Voluntary Sector providers.
The broad aims of this strategy were to provide diverse parenting provision (both group work and one to one work) across the City and County to meet the needs of the communities. This initiative would be multi-professional and the main focus of the parenting groups would be to provide preventative support, although there would also be a need to establish groups for parents directed by the Courts.
The Parenting Strategy in the County has now been in process and operating with success for over 12 months. The strategy in the City is being established. The Parenting Strategy has been endorsed by the Children’s Strategic Partnerships both in the City and County of Leicester.