April Activity Blog

We finally have a draft Parenting Strategy written by parents themselves. Following all the voices we gathered last month we have spent some time looking at the common areas that parents are telling us about. While there are some key messages from parents these fall into five areas and it is these five areas that we are proposing become the five objectives of the parenting strategy. These are:

• Improving communication and the provision of information
• Removing barriers parents told us about that prevent to access to services
• Engaging parents more as partners and improving parental participation
• Improving co-ordination of parenting work and joining up parent services
• Enhancing provision especially provision for parents of teenagers

Services that parents mentioned as being particularly useful included pre-school service such as children's centre and toddler groups; counselling services for adults and families and maternity services. Parenting Strategy Consultation March 2009

The strategy has also been written based on a provision map of resources and a review of relevant data. There are a number of reports that can be downloaded and form the basis of the research that has been done to inform the content of the parenting strategy. Downloadable documents are:

• The draft parenting strategy (feedback will be taken up until mid June)
• Draft action plan (feedback will be taken up until mid June)
• The voice of 2000 Staffordshire parents summary report
• The voice of 2000 Staffordshire parents - full report (part a questionnaire  results)
• The voice of 2000 Staffordshire parents - full report ( part b interviews and focus group results)
• The provision map
• Quantitative needs analysis - summary report
• Quantitative needs analysis - full report

• Easy read parenting strategy (coming soon)
• Feedback report to parents (coming soon)
• DVD - parents views and the parenting strategy (coming soon)

Most parents turn to friends (82%) or family (77%) members for advice about parenting, 5 in 5 ask a health professional. Parenting Strategy Consultation March 2009

The next steps are to take the draft parenting strategy to the Children's Trust Board, explain how we have arrived at the content, that is, it was written by parents themselves and seek their commitment to take action on these areas over the next 2-3 years. I will be presenting the strategy to the board at the end of April, so will be reporting soon on the outcome of that meeting.

In the mean time, just to make sure we have interpreted what parents have said correctly and that the services that work with parents can pass comment - we are asking that if you have any comments on the content to let us know directly (either by e-mail or phone) and we will seek to make any necessary changes.

Once the Children's Trust have made a commitment to the Objectives the next stages will be to take the strategy document to a number of other panels and meetings for endorsement; it will go to Cabinet in June. By September we will have a final strategy and it will be September when I will host a launch event for practitioners, managers and parents alike. Then we move on to the next phase…….taking action and moving forward on making some of the changes, improvements and developments!

See you next month.

Charlotte 

Last Modified: 19/06/2009 12:23:14
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