Involving Young People in Parenting Programmes
SECTION 3
3.12 The IYPP Consultation Day
TSA arranged a meeting in October 2004 with workers and family members from the delivery sites. At this meeting the participants were asked to reflect upon their experiences and to offer some advice for anyone following in their footsteps and attending or running a similar project. Three parents and three young people attended from the Centre for Fun and Families, one parent from East Berkshire YOTs and one parent and one young person attended from Kinara Family Resource Centre. Staff from each of the project sites also attended. Below are some of their comments made during a feedback exercise when each participant was asked to write their advice for others on post it notes. These were then displayed for the other participants to read.
Delivery Site Staff Advice
Advice for anyone considering delivering similar interventions:
Have a follow up strategy to do development work with both young people and parents together.
Have a good administration system set up beforehand,
especially when working with a multi-disciplinary team.
Have multidisciplinary strategies for supporting young people outside of the programme – to do follow up.
Start off with clear aims and objectives that all those involved
in the project agree to.
Be realistic with families.
Don’t underestimate the time admin takes.
Ensure adequate admin support.
Prepare resources to refer parents/young people onto after project finishes e.g. support groups, counselling, advise groups etc.
Advice for young people:
You can make your parent/carer aware of how you feel, stating what you want through your worker, without the possibility of an argument.
It can be helpful to hear what others have to say. If you don’t like talking you can do more listening – there should be no pressure on you to talk.
Give it a go, what can you lose?
It may help to change some of the things you feel angry about.
Advice for parents:
Commit yourself to the programme and see it through.
Your contribution could be helpful for others.
Ensure you ask for what support you really want,
rather than only what you think can be offered.
It is often difficult to talk about things with others that are regarded as private. If you can overcome the fear of being judged as a bad parent the rewards can be great.
This is a good opportunity to more clearly gauge your young person’s level of understanding, giving you a chance to meet the problems exactly where they present them.
Be open minded, treat this project as a ‘new’ concept. Just because other interventions may have failed, give this a chance.
Listen to others / share experiences.
Advice for families:
An opportunity to enjoy time together.
Young People’s Advice
Advice for other young people:
“My advice would be, even if you feel it is not helping and is pointless, keep going to every session because it probably is working even if you cant just see it.
If my mum didn’t go to the Living with Teenagers group, I wouldn’t have gone to the Grounded group because I wouldn’t have thought it was fair.
Make the sessions fun by having a laugh with the other young
people and the staff, and always join in the activities.
Just try it out. It helped me.
Advice for parents:
Listen to your child and try to understand them.
Support the young people.
Try and help your child with his/her problems.
Advice for parents and young people:
Try and understand each others opinion.
Be confident.
Have fun.
Talk about your differences.
Advice for project staff:
I would suggest that the workers should do groups with
just the same age group
Parents Advice
Advice for other parents:
Go on the course, it will change your attitude.
Keep the parallel groups running as they helped our
relationship so much.
Listen to your child more.
Don’t be afraid to go on a group.
You get a lot of good advice from other parents.
Try and stay calm, even when your feeling upset.
Show that you love them.
Advice for young people:
Communicate with each other.
You might learn something, you might be surprised.
You might like it.
Give it a go. You’ll enjoy it.
Advice for project staff:
Offer extra support for parents who need it.
Allow more time for groups.
Advice for agencies:
Get more groups going – parents need support and help to understand youngsters.