RCC5. Family Training Courses – (Later renamed as Keep Calm and Love your Family)
Proposer: Donna Benefer – Cohort Six – Change Champions Course
Funding allocated: £9,780
The Proposal:
The Family Training Courses create an extensive programme of courses for parents living in a deprived area to promote healthy relationships. The objective is to target single parents and couples whilst encouraging diversity; working towards government initiatives; performance indicators of Stay Safe, Enjoy and Achieve, Achieve Economic Wellbeing.
We have reached a number of parents and families and have a record of feedback forms from all parents completed on a weekly basis, (including invoices as evidence for the resources purchased for the programme).
What the money was spent on!
Item Cost Total
Gifts
£220.76
Stationery
£798.60
Fruit
£189.53
Crèche Fees
£5,141.13
Training
£660.00
Children’s Books
£349.80
Category Sub-total £7,359.82
We were awarded £9,780 and we have spent £7,359.82 to date. Training and evaluations is still ongoing.
The majority of the funding was spent on Crèche fees, along with stationery and providing training for 15 people in attendance for Domestic Violent and a further 24 people attending a First Aid Course in two locations across the local area.
What was achieved!
The course has now been delivered in the Broadway Children’s Centre area, and the plan is to deliver the course across the local area and also engaging new parents and extended family, for example, grandparents. We have also trained one volunteer to deliver the programme with prospects of future training to improve their employability; to deliver in the near future. We are also supporting 2 volunteers to co-deliver the programme. From Sept to June 2016 17 families have benefited. Evaluations were included in 2016 and are positive. Of the families who responded, the following are some impact statements.
Impact on Learner
“I’m calmer”, “I listen more”, “and I am a lot more calm and a lot more understanding”
“I am building my self-esteem”, “I am thinking more positively”, “I make more time to spend with others”, “I am happier and I say thank you and please more”, “I have
more patience with my daughter”, I have enjoyed the discussions, I have enjoyed relating to other people’s views, I have enjoyed explanations of a healthy relationship
I have adapted skills to help with my depression, I have enjoyed the interaction it has been enlightening, I have enjoyed all the discussions and activities around what is a perfect family, I have enjoyed seeing a different side of things, I found it useful to see other people’s feelings a bit more, I found it useful for techniques for when my self-esteem is low, I will know what not to say in an argument, It made me see that not everyone is the same and we all have problems and positives, It has made me see how I can work around difficulties and arguments, I am thinking before , acting/speaking, Bring out more confidence in myself, Open up more whilst in groups.
Talking to others, More insightful in myself, Try to express love in as many ways as I can, make a conscious effort, How to show love in the right way, Look out for the positive and negative in who is around yourself and your children, Feeling better in myself slowly, Thinking more before acting/reacting, Trying not to shout, Talking more to oldest child, learning more each week, finding it helpful, I had a lot of negatives when list writing so will be taking that away, may need to focus on my relationship, Keeping calm when I can.
Impact on Family
“I have introduced more family time”, “My family are more appreciative”, “I am more patient with my husband”, “We all seem a lot calmer and we talk more”, I have taken into account my children and partner’s feeling more and appreciate them more.
I have introduced some of the pledges in to my daily life, I have introduced some parts of the healthy relationship session into my everyday life, It has been good looking at how all families are different, Hopefully a calmer atmosphere at home
Built my confidence in my family life for us all, improve my family life
It has helped me be more engaging, Thinking more before acting/speaking
Acceptance of myself and others, to look at point of view for other family members remembering not all negative impacts are a bad thing can be altered to a positive.
Using different ways to show love, I am being more aware of family’s feelings.
Am taking children to the park more, Having time with older child
Reflecting on child’s behaviour more and underlying reasons behind it
Building relationship better trust, positive feelings, Try not to shout, Try to communicate more, more communication with relationships, Constructive, more organised and more involvement of the other little things.
The project has worked better than we hoped it might. It has had impact on teenager as it raises aspiration/self -esteem/ gives confidence to do something else. Develops trust in centre and in staff. It has been so successful we have been able to tag on first aid, Domestic Violence and impact on children modules.
We are engaging with parents working towards improving lives and education of safeguarding for both adult and children. Completing registers and working towards performance indicators and making sure targets are met.
Our evaluations illustrate we are helping families to develop harmony in their families. The work we have done through this funding has also helped us to secure and develop relationships with parents.
We have valued the access to other Staff during the Change Champions session and being able to see an idea from concept to creation to delivery is excellent. Peer support and time to generate ideas in a safe environment where we can get guidance and reassurances was valued by the team. Having time to think and plan is incredible.
Sustainability
As a result of the programme, we are carrying out a comprehensive evaluation of the valuable feedback and to assess what further training would enhance the positive work these courses.
Following on from the successful training of 1 volunteer that helped to facilitate the course, colleagues in other neighbourhoods are supporting 6 volunteer co-ordinators to support their programmes of courses. The volunteers will undergo comprehensive induction training and it is hoped that they will develop their skills and employability whilst helping to deliver the courses to their peers.
As a result of our consultations and feedback, the course name has been changed from ‘Positive Relationships’ to ‘Keep Calm Love Your Family’.
Working together across our neighborhoods with these funded programmes has helped our staff teams form even stronger and more valuable assessment of the programmes. It has enabled improvements to be made as the courses progress and improved results.
We are excited by the potential that the courses have opened up to allow to see what is needed next to provide our parents with the tools to be even safer, healthier and happier.
The course has enabled us to develop new relationships with other agencies such as MASH – children’s services, women’s aid, Forefront (paediatric first aid) nursery nurses, and the community. Training volunteers to work the community is very rewarding as they are more passionate when they are allowed to deliver the training alongside staff.
If we hadn’t been on the Change Champions Course we couldn’t have been given the time/to develop the course. A reduction in funding means that we don’t have the facility to set things up in this way anymore.
The course is easily accessible to all levels and some of our volunteers have gone into work elsewhere. The programme is evolving constantly. Parents get a gift at the end of it to say thank you for attending. It is a relatively little cost but demonstrates a benefit.
Our fears for the future include losing the budget to deliver the course. It needs two p people to deliver as the pressures and issues can be intense. Without the extra funding which has so far been found by the line manager it would be impossible to fund the gifts which the parents value. We are investigating other forms of funding that we can roll out the programme and see which elements we can charge for to make the course replicable and sustainable.
If the project disappeared we would have stressed parents, would lose the agency and partnership working. There would be additional pressure on other services such as increased Domestic Violence, more CYP with emotional and mental wellbeing issues, we would lose lose relationships, trust.