Out and about in Belfast!

After a couple months break from our out and about series over the summer, we thought we’d kick off the next one with a quick trip to Belfast to meet with our Northern Irish counterparts, Parenting Focus, and Contact, one of our members. 

We first heard about Parenting Focus whilst doing some research on parental engagement models and later in October ended up partaking in a Parenting Week Four Nations webinar alongside them and representatives from Wales and England. It was clear from our first online meeting that Parenting Focus were doing interesting work that we could learn a lot from.  

Parenting Focus have been around for 45 years and provide a wide variety of support to parents and carers in Northern Ireland. Their work ranges from: 

After a rather early start to our trip, we were met at Belfast airport by Emma from Parenting Focus who took us to their offices where we were welcomed by the rest of the team.  

Claire from the helpline discussed the main reasons parents and carers reached out to them for support. This included issues with separation, emotional support, school refusal, behaviour and supporting teens. The helpline provided a listening ear for parents and signposted to other Parenting Focus services.  

In response to issues raised through the helpline, the organisation has developed a range of training programmes for parents. This includes ‘Walking on Eggshells’ which supports parents experiencing child to parent violence and ‘Parenting Apart’ helping parents to minimise the impact of separation on children.  

We were interested to hear about Parenting Focus’ work to develop a module on for the Open College Network Northern Ireland on ‘Working with Parents’. We also heard about their approach to parental engagement and how they are adapting the Lundy model to work with parents and carers.  

While in Belfast we also caught up with Susan from Contact, one of our members. Contact support families with disabled children, providing guidance and information and bringing together families to help each other and campaign. They operate across the four nations, with a small team in Northern Ireland who deliver information sessions, workshops and support groups across the country and campaign for better policy, services and support.  

Susan informed us of some of the systems and structures in place in Northern Ireland and how this impacts families. We heard about Family Support Hubs for example, a multiagency network of services that comes together in different localities to ensure that families get access to the support they need from the most appropriate organisation. 

Susan’s insight to parental engagement also gave us some food for thought as we move forward with developing our engagement model. 

Across our visit it was interesting to get a sense of the similarities and differences between Northern Ireland and Scotland. We are working in different contexts but our ambitions are very similar – and that is to ensure that families have access to the support they need – when, where and how they need it.