Parents' Week 2008 – Getting it right for families?

Celebrating work with parents and families

Image: Images/PW08/PW08.jpg

The ninth annual Parents' Week ran from Monday 20 October to Sunday 26 October and was the most successful yet, with over 440 events for parents, carers, children and practitioners taking place across the country.

This year's theme was designed to encourage you to celebrate and evaluate your work with parents and families and had two aims:

  • To offer practitioners working with parents and families practical support to hold their own 'listening event' with families to evaluate their work
  • To showcase how practitioners are successfully supporting families across the country.

With your help, we were able to promote over 400 regional Parents' Week events on the Noticeboard page of our website.

Here are a few highlights:

  • Children in Wales held their National Annual Parents' Week Conference
  • Hull Family information Service provided a mobile unit in the city centre all week with information and advice for parents
  • Distribution of bookmarks through libraries across Devon to mark the Week and highlight their parenting strategy
  • Parenting Roadshows in Blackpool
  • 26 events in Darlington, with the mayor launching the Week
  • Family Coaching CafĂ© Sessions in Starbucks in Maidstone
  • Launch of the Blaenau Gwent parent and family support strategy

Other activities included Fun Days, Pamper Sessions and Drop-in and taster sessions in schools, Children's Centres and libraries across the country.

The majority of events this year were organised by schools and children's centres, with many of them providing opportunities for parents and carers to give their opinion of the service and shape future development:

  • In Canterbury, they held The Big Listen, asking parents' views on pre-school provision and offering 4 drop-in venues, 10 'post boxes' and a website for parents to have their say.
  • Spa Spiders Children's Centre in Doncaster held a series of informal drop-ins, inviting parents to come in and talk about their experiences of the Centre.
  • In Stoke, a conference was held to capture parents' views on their Children and Young People's Plan.
  • North Kirkby Children's Centre held evaluations throughout the Week by placing 'trees' in each Centre, and encouraging children and their families to decorate and fill in the 'leaves' with comments about the Centre.

Practitioner's Guide

'Supervising family and parenting workers – a short guide proved very popular. The second guide in the Parents' Week series was requested by over 1600 practitioners and is available to download or purchase though our bookshop.

 

FPI events

We launched Family Voice - our new online venture taking the voice of families to policy makers, politicians and the media – at a primary school in East London, and were pleased to be able to talk to a diverse group of parents about our plans and how they can be involved. To find out how you can get involved, click here

The launch was followed by a consultation, organised on behalf of the DCSF, which asked parents their views on the commercialisation of childhood. Twenty four parents, from a diverse range of backgrounds, took part in a lively and productive discussion which will be reported to the advisory group set up by the department and reporting to the Minister for Children, Schools and Families.

We also held our annual House of Commons reception which was well attended and enjoyed by over 150 of our colleagues and supporters. Keynote speeches were given Trevor Phillips OBE and Dr Tanya Byron. You can find out more about this event here.

 

Next year's date and theme

2009 is the tenth anniversary of the Institute and we will be focussing Parents' Week 09 on 'The Changing Face of Families'. The Week will run from Monday 19 to Sunday 25 October.

Last updated: 9th December 2008 at 02:12:14