CYP(3) PAP 19

Children and Young People Committee

Inquiry into Parenting Action Plan

Response From Swansea Children and Young People Partnership

1. Delivery of the Parenting Action Plan
2. How effective do you consider the implementation of the Parenting Action Plan to have been?

Parenting in Swansea has significantly evolved over the last 3 years.  There are a number of agencies both statutory and non statutory delivering Parenting to targeted universal groups but also targeting specific 'hard to reach’ groups ensuring that services offered are coherent as a whole and promote empowerment not dependency.  There is  work taking place as part of the early years work in Swansea focused on supporting specific groups for example; supporting young parents (e.g. Swansea Young Families), supporting children in education, (e.g. virtual Babies, Children Matter), as part of a holistic approach to working with vulnerable young people and those with complex/acute needs (e.g. within YOT and Tre Hafod Adolescent Unit), supporting families in the community (BME work and Dad’s work) and parents with acute/complex needs (Swansea Drugs Project, WCADA).  There are several other agencies involved in promoting positive parenting within the day to day delivery of services.

The Parenting Action Plan (PAP) identifies Integrated Children’s Centres as a mechanism to bring together many services for parents and children. Swansea Integrated Children Centre has been successfully developed as a facility for multi agency partnerships in delivering parenting in Swansea.  'Mini’ Integrated Children Centres are being developed around the Flying Start initiative in order to provide coherent services for families in the communities.

There has also been increased activity especially as a result of new initiatives such as Flying Start.  Within the Flying Start intervention programme an ethos of partnership work is one of the key factors. Four agencies with a track record of delivering parenting to specific targeted groups in Swansea provide the parenting interventions across the Programme. The Parenting Manager in the Early Years Development Team has a co-ordination role to look at all agencies within Flying Start working together to promote positive parenting, engage families into services and to deliver a service that best meets the family’s needs, ensuring that the holistic needs of the family are being met and positive parenting is promoted effectively.  Multi agency meetings have either been organised or are planned to discuss the delivery of parenting within each geographical area.  This provides the multi disciplinary approach to parenting which reflects the pressures of families within a particular community of need.  

In relation to providing support to parents and assisting in managing children’s behaviour Swansea capitalised on the Incredible Years Training funded by WAG in 2006/7 and has subsequently funded additional programmes in order to ensure that the needs of additional practitioners were met to deliver parenting interventions via group or on a one to one basis.  Between April 07 and March 08 nine groups were run delivering Incredible Years; 69 families accessed the programmes with 84.05% of families completing the programme.

During the last year Swansea also invested in training the trainer programmes of Managing Children’s Behaviour and Managing Teenage Behaviour.  Further behaviour management programmes are currently being sought including Parentline Plus and STEPS to promote positive self esteem.

In general good progress has been made in relation to the implementation of the Parenting Action Plan with further developments planned including the establishment of a Parenting Strategy.  The answers to the questions below provide more detailed responses and illustrations.

Has the amount of Support available to parents increased?

Over the last 3 years Parenting in Swansea has significantly evolved.  There are a number of partnership agencies delivering Parenting to targeted universal groups but also targeting specific 'hard to reach’ groups ensuring that services offered are coherent as a whole and promote empowerment not dependency.   The increased services through the Flying Start initiative have had a significant impact on the range of services being provided in the targeted areas.  However there are very few services being offered to parents as a universal service.  This means that services are often only available if a family lives in a particular area or has a particular acute issue.  Even Health Visiting which is recognised as a universal service now has an element of targeting.

Is support accessible to all parents?

As specified above, services are very rarely provided to parents universally.  Support tends to be targeted to those in very tight geographical areas identified as being of high disadvantage or targeted to parents identified as in crisis.

1.4 Is support getting through to the parents who need it most?

Swansea has approached parenting by investing in services providing interventions in disadvantaged geographical communities and communities of need that cover the whole of Swansea.  In addition there is a team led by the Parenting Manager that provides parenting to those families in need do not qualify for services based on geography or community of need.  These services are all regarded as over and above those provided by statutory agencies.

Open and transparent referral systems are in place and agencies promote services on offer to key groups of professionals such as social workers and health visitors.  Close working with schools, particularly in relation to the Flying Start Programme is also key to ensuring that the hard to reach families are engaged.

Partnership working is key to ensuring that the needs of families are met and identified in the first place.  Community based organisations make a valuable contribution as both identifying need and providing ongoing support following parenting interventions.

Swansea has a commitment to increase early intervention focus across the CYP partnership, there is an outstanding need to work 'further upstream’, when parents and children first begin to experience problems. (This was borne out by the consultation with the YOT parents’ group, carried out for the Integrated Needs Assessment, during which parents stated that they had recognised problems with their children at an early age, but there was no-one to talk to until a crisis had occurred.) Incorporating parenting into Integrated Service Development models could be a possible way to address this, also offering the opportunity of simultaneously supporting children and young people, e.g. through raising their resilience, or signposting them to other sources of support. Similarly, exploring opportunities afforded by the Community Focus Schools agenda could add a further dimension to the links with education and the school setting.

1.5 Do parents receive more information, and is positive parenting effectively promoted?

The tree booklets for parents:

• " over the Top Behaviour in the Under 10’s” (for parents of children 5-10 years)
• "From Breakfast to Bedtime” (for parents of children 0 -5 years)
• "Help at Hand: Taking   a Positive Approach to Parenting

which have been sponsored by the Assembly for parents and developed by Children in Wales, have been distributed to parents via schools or via health visitors and also made available to practitioners via the Children’s Information Service.

In addition on a local basis;

Work has been undertaken to develop an information booklet for parents, providing advice for a range of topics that parents face daily.  A consultation process was followed where both professionals and clients were canvassed to discover the topics that families wanted information on and a list of topics were identified.  Two booklets have been developed;

• A Guide for Parents and Carers  of birth to eleven years olds in Swansea
• A Guide for Parents and Carers of 12 to 19 years olds in Swansea

The booklets contain basic advice a range of topics but also local and national contact numbers and web sites where further information and advice can be sought.

A range of information leaflets have been developed by the Sure Start/Flying Start health team to provide basic information to parents of children birth to three years of age.  The information contains both pictorial and written information and has been translated into several languages.  These have been shared with other agencies involved in parenting in Swansea to ensure that the information provided to parents is coherent across services.  

Multi cultural resource packs containing pictorials, videos, CD’s and written information in several languages on pregnancy, childbirth and child health information, which are distributed for use by both community and hospital staff.  It is planned to build on this resource in the coming year to develop information supporting positive parenting.

Close links have been fostered and services linked up with the Children/Families information service to ensure that the Information Service provides better integration.  In Swansea both the CIS and the Early Years Development Team are co-located.  The benefits of this are that updated information is updated regularly and is easily accessed and disseminated to parenting teams to service users.   The CIS in Swansea is continually looking at new opportunities to promote the service.

Positive parenting is also promoted through investment in a number of projects funded by Cymorth and Flying Start as well as in mainstream services in Social Services, Education and Health.  This includes informal promotion of positive parenting but also more formal promotion through more formal parenting groups such as 'Incredible Years’ and 'Handling children’s behaviour’.  

1.6 Do Parents participate more in planning services and in schools?

Parental participation in schools:

Good practice suggests that all stakeholders are involved in developing policy in both primary and secondary schools. There is heavy involvement many schools usually with parents offering voluntary support through PTA and Parent Governors.

Example of good practice:

Plasmarl primary school plan developing skills days, parents have been invited in to participate alongside pupils in workshops.

Oystermouth Primary school had a focus on Anti-bullying.  Parent questionnaire were sent out and parents were involved in a working party to review and develop policy.  They were also invited in to view pupils work during Anti-Bullying week.

Additional services and parent participation:

Services providing parenting undertake evaluation of the interventions and some separately consult with service users in relation to reviewing the Service as a whole.  For example, work has been carried out by the Early Years Development team in conjunction with a consultancy firm (Pont Associates), to develop a robust evaluation framework which will look at the impact of the parenting support service on the family.  Part of the evaluation asks clients how the service can be improved, which is used to develop existing services and identify the need for new services.  

A number of projects have parents as members of management /steering groups.

In the past Swansea has provided parents with the opportunity to undertake training the trainer, attending facilitators’ forums and participation in multi-agency planning of service provision.  It is acknowledged that further consideration is needed in relation to the
practicalities and ensuring that it is meaningful involvement.

1.7 Are you aware of any barriers experienced by parents in accessing support services and information sources?  What are the key areas for these barriers?

Barriers differ for mothers and fathers, depending on age of children, the geographical location and the services available.  The barriers experienced by parents in accessing services are transport (particularly for parents on low income), stigmatisation (because services are targeted and therefore seen as being for 'bad parents’), resources (both of providers and of parents accessing services who need childcare etc.) and fear surrounding domestic violence.  Services are not always available for a parent unless they are living in a targeted area or there are issues identified as significantly acute to receive support, such as child protection etc.

Within Flying Start Parenting programmes are being delivered on a rolling programme, delivering the Webster Stratton Incredible Years Programme along side the tertiary skills for parenting and developing self esteem within clients.  While the parents, who readily seek to access advice, are open to attending parenting groups on offer, it is in the main more difficult to engage the 'hard to reach’ families.  There is a need to use a creative means of engaging parents into parenting in order to meet the needs and engage the 'harder to reach’ families and make groups more inviting and therefore accessible.  

Feedback from referrers and research have indicated a need for preparatory work on a one to one basis with families before they will attend groups and that positive parenting within groups needs to be initially 'low key’ and informal before leading onto a structured parenting programme.  If relationships are not built with the parent/carer there is less chance of the parent/carer completing the programme and effecting change.  Evaluation of delivering the Incredible Years Programmes have shown where time has been taken to build relationships with the parents and offer a less structured programme initially the parents have shown more commitment to attending the structured Incredible Years Programme and therefore there have been fewer drops out in attendance.  Many of the parents have then asked to attend the course a second and third time.  

However the time needed to develop the relationships is often impacted by the capacity of staff, the demand for services are often greater than the number staff available, with most, if not all, agencies involved in promoting positive parenting experiencing significant waiting lists.

One of the major barriers identified to engaging parents into parenting services is the low self esteem generally within the 'hard to reach’ client groups.  Parenting is a difficult job for most of us but when our self perception is low it can become even more difficult.  The Early Years Parenting Development team have delivered a programme they have named 'Help your child be more confident in school’, which is based on the NCH 'Esteem builders’ course.  This looks at how self esteem impacts on our lives, who has impacted on our own self esteem both positively and negatively, how our actions impact on our children’s self esteem and how we build positive self esteem in our children.  Evaluations by parents have indicated a need for more work in this area, all parents who completed the evaluation feedback reflected the benefits of addressing self esteem issues and the negative impact this has on their ability to parent positively.  

More commitment to offer programmes to raise self esteem and enhance performance, such as the S.T.E.P.S programme, is needed as a tool to engage parents and build confidence before they feel able to access parenting groups.

Insufficient childcare for groups makes it difficult for parents to commit to attending.  Whilst Flying Start in Swansea offers universal childcare for children aged between 2 and 3 years old, the parent may also have either a younger child or indeed a nursery aged child who will need childcare for the duration of the group.  There needs to be commitment to continue to provide and develop sufficient good quality childcare which can run alongside parenting initiatives.  By having quality childcare provided it gives parents an opportunity to see the modelling of effective play skills, which will support parents learning and therefore impact on the parent child relationship.

Traditionally, parenting work can be thought of as courses about handling children’s behaviour.  Before we even get there with many parents, we need to make sure that we have in place the means to build their capacity to manage independently.  Whilst positive parenting is identified as an area of concern in the majority of referrals received by the parenting teams, following initial visits assessments often show a difficulty managing the day to day running of the practical side of parenting i.e. budgeting, debt, housing issues, routines etc.  The impact of having major debt or issues with housing that may result in eviction make it difficult to look at positive parenting.  Support to address such issues is vital before work can begin to enhance parenting skills and promote positive parenting.  

1.8 Can you provide any examples of innovative practice in ensuring that services and information is accessible, and barriers can be overcome?

The following are good practice examples of innovative practice in services for families in Swansea.

Engaging Teenage Parents

Flying Start Midwife in partnership with the Early Years Parenting Development Team is currently developing a programme aimed at preparing young parents for the birth of their child.  The aim of the programme is to look at the birth and the health needs around pregnancy, pain relief for the birth and practical parenting skills needed to support independence as well as parent craft to meet the needs of a young baby.  It is hoped that engaging the young parents at this stage and building positive professional relationships will lead on to engagement in further preventative services following the birth of the baby.  It is important that at this stage the parents are introduced and informed of the support that is available to support parenting.     

Swansea Young Families (NCH)

The Young Families Scheme works with 50 families per year, and always has a waiting list.  Although the numbers seem small, the issues for this client group are significant.  The implications of not providing services when they are needed can be serious.  The keynote to successful parenting work with young parents is holistic support.  Traditionally, parenting work can be thought of as courses about handling children’s behaviour.  Before we even get there with young parents, we need to make sure that we have in place the means to build their capacity to manage independently as young people.  

The focus of the work undertaken by Swansea Young Families is to build the skills needed to create independency and not dependency. For this age group, support around coping with many transitions is fundamentally important.  As young parents encounter the many changes in their relationships; their accommodation; their roles; their physical and emotional selves; their responsibilities - so any work that sets out to support them must address this range of issues.  

Group and direct support work is offered to provide the preparatory work for expectant young parents that will equip them to adjust to the demands of parenthood and cope with the demands when they arrive.

Practical work is undertaken to enable them to achieve a stable independent lifestyle, and to manage the basic routines involved parenting.  Ranges of learning opportunities are offered that build knowledge, skill and confidence in key areas.  Examples of these areas might include financial literacy and management; cookery; managing children’s behaviour; First Aid; the importance of play.

During this period of fast transition and early adjustment to fundamental responsibilities, it is important to support the young parents in their emotional journey.  They may well be coping with the emotional surges of adolescence, of dealing with new stages in relationships, as well as the highs and lows of parenthood - and its concomitant exhaustion and joy.  Support in building confidence; motivation; self esteem and in anger management is vital.

Many young parents will have experienced a disrupted education.  Parenting work can help signpost to Basic Skills courses and other personal and vocational courses and advice. As young parents feel more comfortable themselves, so they will feel more confident and able to support their child’s learning. As they begin to feel more a part of the community and society they live in, so they will better operate within those contexts, and integrate their children successfully.

It is important that services and resources are continually monitored and developed so that we can continue to offer the range and levels of support that can holistically address the needs of young people who are becoming, and who are, parents.

Currently there is multi agency support for young parents in Swansea. Agencies working with this client base include Swansea Young Families Team, Sure Start/Flying Start Health Team, Sure Start Dads Project, The Sexual Health Team, Info Nation and The Youth Advisory Service.  

Preventative work with young people

The Early Years Parenting Development Team supports the PSE staff within schools in Swansea and staff in residential care settings.  The 'Virtual baby’ offers experiential learning opportunity, it is and authentic task that is very close to the 'real thing’.  The parenting experience allows students to draw their own conclusion and discover for themselves what the role of parenting feels like.  The goal of caring for a baby is for the student to consider the needs of a baby and the life changes that occur when a child is born.  The 'virtual Baby’ is used in conjunction with the 'Real Care Parenting Program manual’ and as part as key stage 3 PSE syllabus.

Currently we have worked closely with 5 comprehensive schools, the TLC service and LAC Health Team.  We have had requests from several more schools but have been unable to fulfil the demand because of capacity.   Evaluations from both the agencies, schools and the students have been very positive.

Black and Minority Ethnic community

The Flying Start and Sure Start Health Teams have an established team working with the BME communities in Swansea.  Currently there is a specialist midwife and 2 Bengali and Punjabi speaking link workers working with the females within the Bengali community in Swansea.  The role of the link workers from the Bengali community is not only to work with the families but also to provide support and advice to professionals working with the BME community.  There is also a male health visitor who works alongside the Eyst project with young men aged 11 to 25.  Partnership work is being developed to build a multi agency approach to delivering positive parenting within the community.

For example a working group of professionals have been identified who are currently working with the BME community in the Hafod area of Swansea.  

The Specialist Midwife for Sure Start has established successful groups, which are engaging women from this community.  Women in the Bangladeshi community identified that they had no opportunity to exercise; this information therefore provided an opportunity to actively engage with the identified group of parents and an exercise group was established.  In order to address the need to promote positive parenting within the community the multi disciplinary team have looked creatively at topics which are to be delivered, initially, in short half hour sessions at the end of the exercise groups with the ultimate aim of engaging the mothers and grandmothers to attend more structured programmes.  The initial focus of the work will be to look at the value of play, a programme of sessions has been identified and will be facilitated beginning in September by members of the working group.  Dates have been set for members of the working group to attend sessions to introduce themselves and consult with parents on topics they would like covered, this information will act as the starting point of the plan.

Multi cultural resource packs containing pictorials, videos, CD’s and written information in several languages on pregnancy, childbirth and child health information, which are distributed for use by both community and hospital staff.  It is planned to build on this resource in the coming year to develop information supporting positive parenting.

Supporting parents with substance misuse

The aim is to channel a holistic service through multi agency and partnership working with parents involved substance misuse within the City & County of Swansea to lessen the impact of the effects of substance misuse on the parents’ ability to parent positively.

What Support is Available in Swansea

• Swansea Drugs Project.

Swansea Drugs Project has four fulltime workers working with parents who have a substance misuse problem. The team provide a range of services working to the Harm Reduction Philosophy, working to reduce harm to individuals, families and the wider community affected by drugs and alcohol.

They offer one to one, group and community based work, responding to the need of the parent.  The team has developed a Positive Parenting programme which looks at the impact on children where there are issues with substance misuse and how the effect can be reduced through positive parenting.  This programme is currently being evaluated with the aim to work towards accreditation.

West Glamorgan Council on Alcohol and Drug Abuse.

The team has two full time workers working with people affected by their own and /or someone else’s substance misuse problem. The team provides a range of services working to the 12 Steps abstinence programme. Offering One to one, group and community based work, responding to the needs of parents.

These are the two services funded to work with parents and Substance Misuse Issues. Working in partnership with other drug services to provide appropriate packages of care where prescribing is required.

Supporting Dads in the community

The Early years Development team has a team of 3 male development workers who offer support specifically to fathers.  The team was established in 2002, the Dads Development Workers endeavor to provide a holistic support to parenting. The aim of the support is to foster closer positive relationships fathers and their children.  

The team currently offers both one to one support and group support.  Group support involves 2 community based groups looking at positive parenting and 1 promoting healthy living and healthy eating.  Co-working has been established with the basic skills team to offer the men both basic skills training and cooking skills, initial feedback is very positive with the fathers already accessing further opportunities, which will in turn impact on self esteem and their ability to parent effectively.  

The team also works in Swansea prison delivering a parenting group to fathers that are due to be released from prison.  They support fathers to look at the role of a father, the impact masculinity - values and beliefs - has on their ability to parent positively, meeting the needs of the child, building positive relationships and managing children’s behaviour behaviour.  

Following research to look for a parenting programme that looks a positive parenting but also the impact of values and beliefs held that impact on some men’s ability to parent effectively, no evaluated programme was found.  Research, evaluation and experience have highlighted a need to support fathers who are finding it difficult to foster positive relationships with their child to look at their beliefs and values and how this is impacting on their parenting. Therefore programme has been delivered and is to be evaluated with the aim of working towards accreditation.

Information for Parents

As specified in 1.1 above work has been done to develop an information booklet for parents providing advice for a range of topics that parents face daily.  A consultation process was followed where both professionals and clients were canvassed to discover the topics that families wanted information on and a list of topics were identified.  Two booklets have been developed;

• A Guide for Parents and Carers  of birth to eleven years olds in Swansea
• A Guide for Parents and Carers of 12 to 19 years olds in Swansea

The booklets contain basic advice a range of topics but also local and national contact numbers and web sites where further information and advice can be sought.

A range of information leaflets have been developed by the Sure Start/Flying Start health team to provide basic information to parents of children birth to three years of age.  The information contains both pictorial and written information and has been translated into several languages.  These have been shared with other agencies involved in parenting in Swansea to ensure that the information provided to parents is coherent across services.  

Multi cultural resource packs containing pictorials, videos, CD’s and written information in several languages on pregnancy, childbirth and child health information, which are distributed for use by both community and hospital staff.  It is planned to build on this resource in the coming year to develop information supporting positive parenting.

Close links have been fostered and services linked up with the Children/Families information service to ensure that information service provides better integration.  In Swansea both the CIS and the Early Years Development Team are co located in the same venue.  The benefits of this are that updated information is updated regularly and is easily accessed and disseminated through parenting teams to service users.     

Training

Following evaluation of the programmes being currently offered by the parenting teams, it was highlighted that there was a need to deliver short, 2 or 3 session, programmes or one off sessions in order to engage the more hard to reach parents in communities.  Following research it has been decided to train parenting practitioners in the 'Parentline Plus’ programme.  This will enable facilitators to provide accessible positive parenting using an evaluated programme.  One day workshops are planned for the autumn term.  This training will be looked at strategically to ensure that a variety of parenting agencies have sufficient staff trained to deliver the programmes allowing as many communities to have access to the service.   

A needs analysis has been carried out to look at training need across services in Swansea promoting positive parenting to be able to offer training strategically.  Following the survey training days have been developed to offer 'building self esteem in client’ and 'motivational interviewing’.  Training the trainers courses have also been facilitated to offer 'handling children’s behaviour’, 'handling teenage behaviour’ and 'effective groupwork’.  A rolling programme of training is developing to ensure that the skills of staff delivering parenting in Swansea is continually developed and enhanced.

Evaluation

Work has been carried out by the Early Years Development team in conjunction with a consultancy firm, to develop a robust evaluation framework which will look at the impact of parenting support service on the;

• parents self esteem and confidence
• parenting skills
• Change of children’s behaviour
• Support the service offered

It is planned that following piloting of the evaluation system has been completed that the framework would then be able to be shared by partnership projects and a coherent, robust evaluation system will be developed across services.

2. Continued work on parenting

2.1 What do you consider to be the key parenting issues still needing to be addressed by the Welsh Assembly Government?

Access to services and information to support them in their parenting role is a key issue for many parents.  Information at the right time can prevent families being in greater need of services later on.  However for many 'hard to reach’ families building capacity to live independently is equally as important, having the confidence to access the information needed is vital and one of the main barriers to positive change in many families lives.  However in order to enable services to be developed to meet need, commitment to long term investment needs to be continued and expanded.

Demands on services often outweigh capacity of staff, time needs to be give to developing the relationships needed in order to engage the 'hard to reach’ families for positive change to be made and sustained.  

In England there is a Parenting Academy that highlights good practice and explores 'what works’ in parenting support and develops parenting training and support materials for parents.  A similar set up in Wales would provide leadership to promote quality provision, provide a focus for parenting services and coordinate activities across Wales.

Policies need to be inclusive; the target cannot be only those living in disadvantaged areas since parenting issues exist at all levels of society.

If we are to look at parenting holistically in Wales there will be a particularly need to look at the connections between parenting, childcare and play provision that will need to be further developed.  If parenting is to be accessible for parents there needs to be adequate play or childcare provision provided not just in targeted areas but to the wider communities within Authorities.  The provision of quality childcare also offers the opportunity to model and inform parents on play opportunities that enhance the child’s development and supports the parent to help their child reach their full potential.

1. What has worked and what hasn’t?
2. See examples of good practice specified in 2.1 above.
3. Successful implementation
4. Partnership working and co-ordination of this
5. Investing in training the trainers of accredited programmes
6. Investing in supplementary information for parents
7. Acknowledging that barriers need to be addressed before positive parenting interventions such as debt, esteem, problem substance use, housing etc.
8. What has not been successfully implemented?
9. More work is required in terms of involving parents at a planning level which Swansea will need to give consideration to via the delivery of the Single Plan
10. More consideration required to providing universal parenting support