Empowering Families in Children's Centre's

Develop Your Child have been developing a unique approach in empowering families based on coaching and emotional literacy techniques over the last 6 years. We recently completed a 6 week course at Park Wood CC with some parents asking for more training to improve themselves and support their community. This inspired me to approach *Awards for All to get grant funding for a new course ‘Parent Champions’ to fulfill their requirements.

On completion of the course this was an email from one parent
“I just wanted to say thank-you so much for all your help and support with the course, you are a great person and you helped to change my life for the better, the future is open to anything I want to do. I would like it if we could stay in contact as I have connected with you and I truly think I can learn a lot from you. Before I did the course I had no dreams for the future but now I can see a brighter future and a better life for me and my family."

And another
"Before I started this course I could not handle my 2 children as they are both under five and my life was a mess itself, so I decided to take the course and see if it could help me take control over my life and my children’s.

Whilst I was on the course I noticed that what I did and how I felt affected my children in their lives. So I started to learn new ways in which I could help them and I noticed I was able to talk to my 4 year old son better and learnt how to spend time with them both and also do one on one with them. I also learnt how to love myself and stop putting myself down and learnt new ways to deal with things on a day to day basis.

After the course had ended I still practiced these new skills and now my children are much better behaved and I get up everyday and say to myself in the mirror that I love myself and that being a parent is difficult but I can handle anything that is thrown at me. In the day I am a lot calmer with things that happen and I have also learnt that taking an hour for myself everyday is not being selfish. So a massive thank you for helping me see all that and keep up with the good work.”

We have just completed another course at the Sunshine CC with parents growing in confidence, changing relationships in their families and spending quality time with their children, after only 3 weeks. In the third session they asked to focus on getting a job and new skills, I am co-ordinating with Job Centre Plus to fulfil their requirements.

This is what one parent wrote after attending only 2 sessions

“Just to inform you and the rest of the group, I have made lots of progress this week and have been really proactive, I have requested an application form for a job, and done lots of research on jobs in the local area, I have an interview with a careers advisor at the job centre on Wednesday. Me and J filled out the online questionnaire for Australia and are waiting for something to come back. I have spent a lot of time just playing with S this weekend and left the housework, both of us really enjoyed spending time together and she seems a lot happier, I too am really happy at the moment as I feel really positive about the progress I have made.”

And another on completion
When I came to my first session, I can remember feeling quite low and not enjoying being a parent. I was feeling bored with life and felt that I needed something more to occupy my mind. Although I have a very active 1 year old I was feeling like I wasn't achieving anything by looking after my daughter and thought that going back to work was the answer. Since then I have changed my outlook on life and how I see things at this point in my life and I believe this is down to your sessions.

I feel that by talking through what I have achieved in my life so far and by using the course materials to realise what I have, has made me realise that you don't need a lot to be really happy. I realised that being happy can affect so many different aspects of my life, such as my daughters moods and my relationship with my partner. I know now that true happiness for me is being content with what I have got and what I have achieved already so far in my life, my daughter, my fiancé (we have got engaged since I have been attending your course), my house, etc.

Where as before, I felt like I needed to achieve more, I wasn't content with just being a mum and didn't see this as an important role. Now I embrace my role as a mother and enjoy each and every day with my daughter. I know these early stages in her life will go by so quickly, and as her mother I can offer her so much by being here at home with her.

I have also looked into and will be attending a seminar on becoming a life coach. You mentioned this to me after we did a session on what our real passions were, and from this I discovered that I enjoyed listening to people, helping and guiding people.
 
Thank you for all your guidance and support.

*Fantastic news, we have just been awarded almost £10,000 to develop the 'Parent Champion' programme. More details here.

There is an article on our unique whole family coaching approach in the December issue of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, CCYP Journal, and one of our programmes has been included in Commissioning Toolkit.