Family support & engagement
Community Acorns with a wealth of practical and successful experience in all aspects of childcare is well placed and organised to help you develop and take forward your communities ideas and aspirations to improve provision for families through support and engagement.
Family support, education, training, parent consultation programmes & events
'Stay and play/craft sessions' – offer informal family support where parents and carers can bring their children to take part in organised play activities. Initiatives such as this have led to the formation of strong parent & toddler groups forming against a backdrop where provision is under pressure and settings are closing. Community Acorns can facilitate, lead and develop this provision for your agency, group or perhaps committee providing a supportive role for your organisation taking initiatives forward.
We can help you to..
- Set up a safe stimulating environment for the session, led by or under the supervision of principle Ann Tyndall
- Health & safety being paramount risk assessments will be carried out for each venue and session. Indemnity and public liability insurance is in place.
- Provide support and information throughout the session, signposting to other services and professionals as appropriate.
- Ensure a warm welcome and a caring friendly environment for parents and their children.
- Support the development of peer support.
- Support parents confidence in their parenting skills, happy parents = happy children.
- Plan and facilitate play taking into account the needs and interests of the children and parents that attend.
- Increase parents understanding of child development and the importance of play in their child’s learning and development.
- Model strategies to deal with children’s behaviour; provide information and support and signpost to appropriate agencies if this would be helpful.
- Offer advice and support to parents to enable them to provide a positive learning environment for their children at home.
- Support parents in contributing to the group.
- Be inclusive and non-judgemental.
- Facilitate early Identification of specific or additional needs refer or signpost to appropriate agencies.
- To set up and develop the operational plan, involving and acting upon the views of partner agencies, parents and statutory agencies.
- Provide craft materials for the sessions.
- Provide snacks and drinks.
- Venue hire
- Promotion and marketing
Flexibility is incorporated throughout to help meet and achieve your requirements.
Sessions such as these could be regular weekly sessions in SureStart Children’s Centres, in community centres, in schools, libraries, or perhaps committee managed initiatives in smaller places for example rural locations fortnightly in village halls, the possibilities are immense when partnerships work.
Costs for regular sessions such as these can be from £45 for a session if you have suitable venue and equipment to use. Help with funding can be available via a variety of grants and Community Acorns can help you to apply for grants.
Why do it…..?
Surely most of us would agree that the modern day pressures of life today has changed our lives today when compared to those ‘golden, olden days’ of the past. The olden days when our grandparents didn’t lock their front door, where we cared for children in our street, where dad worked and mum stayed at home caring for the house and the children and general family’s needs. These communities are looked upon as being strong, where people were more independent and generally content.
Surely we are all surely children of our times? We have no individual control about when we enter this world and we are all members of our own individual communities, the places where we live.
We are all living here and now! Let’s get on with it and make the most of it now! Where possible we should at least try and implement improvement, and not concentrate on blame and the negativity of what is wrong. Much of this blame and negativity seems to centre on children and young people, so called lost generations who missed out on good parenting and those trapped in a benefit claim system and culture.