Since 1999 Parenting NI has led on and organised National Parenting Week in Northern Ireland in partnership with other local and regional groups that support parents and children. Over the years thousands of families and family organisations have been involved. It has helped highlight the importance of the role of parents and draws attention to their needs and concerns.
Many of our children and young people are disadvantaged by many factors, which adversely impact on their outcomes, supporting parents in their role is essential in improving the outcomes of our children. Promoting the parent child relationship is an important way to improve outcomes.
The benefits of supporting the parent child relationship are: Health There is currently major concern about the physical health of children. Much of this concern focuses around low levels of physical exercise. Children’s play, especially outdoor, offers many opportunities for physical activity. So encouraging and supporting a positive parent child relationship can help support children’s physical health. Enjoying, learning and achieving One method to build a parent child relationship can be through play. It is widely accepted that in early childhood most of children’s learning is acquired through play. When playing, children define their own goals and interests, decide what is success and failure and pursue these goals in their own way. Contributing positively to community and society Embracing and supporting the parent child relationship allows children to grow to make an important contribution to community life. It is a crucial medium for social interaction and for forming, maintaining and negotiating relationships. Children learn from the way others and the environment react, the effects of their actions and value others place on them. Children contribute to the community and to society when they are visible, when the environment within which they live maximises all opportunities.
Children's most important early relationships are with their parents. Positive parent-child relationships are important for all areas of children’s development. Spending quality time and showing warmth, care and respect, can strengthen your relationship with your child.
Relationships shape how children see the world because relationships allow children to express themselves. For example, when they cry, or laugh or ask a question they will get a response, those responses give them important information and tells them a lot about how to think, understand, communicate, behave, show emotions and develop social skills.
Parents’ Week is an opportunity to celebrate the valuable work that organisations do with parents and families in their community. Parenting NI launched Parenting Week with a seminar for professionals led by Dr Karen Treisman in Girdwood Community Hub, Belfast and corporate event hosted by Josh Levs followed by a weeklong series of activities. We are delighted with the success of Parenting Week 2018 which offered a wide programme of events and activities for parents, families and professionals throughout Northern Ireland.
Parenting NI wishes to thank all those who participated and especially the Northern Childcare Partnership who supported the activities in the Northern Trust areas.
Parenting NI Staff Launching Parenting Week
Parenting NI’s Ambassador Pip Jaffa OBE launched Parenting Week at the Understanding the Impact of Relational Trauma led by Dr Karen Treisman seminar for professionals in Girdwood Community Hub. Key note speaker Dr Karen Treisman, a Highly Specialist Clinical Psychologist who has worked in the National Health System and children’s services for several years. Karen has extensive experience in the areas of trauma, parenting, adversity (ACE’s) and attachment, and works clinically using a range of therapeutic approaches with families, systems, and children in or on the edge of care, unaccompanied asylum- seeking young people, and adopted children. Karen also specialises in supporting organisations and systems to move towards being, and to sustain trauma-informed and trauma-responsive practice. This work focuses on creating a cultural and paradigm shift across whole systems.
This unique event explored: Why is the parent / child relationship so important? What is meant by relational & developmental trauma? Provide rational & framework for relationship based trauma-informed practice Understand the impact of domestic violence and physical abuse
246 professionals registered and attended the event.
Evaluation Findings
Each professional received an evaluation form, which was completed by 154 attendees. The evaluations showed:
Average Good Booking Process for the Event Venue 3% 3%
Good Very Good 3% 19%
Very Good 14% Excellent Excellent 83% 75%
Venue The Information Presented Average Good 3% 3% was Relevant & Useful
Very Good Good 19% 1% Very Good 8% Excellent 75% Excellent 91%
The Event was Well Paced within The Facilitator was the Allotted Time Knowledgeable on the Topic Could be Good Improved 2% Very Good Very Good 1% 11% 1%
Excellent Excellent 86% 99%
Overall Level of Satisfaction
Very Good 5%
Excellent 95%
“Excellent event from start to finish. So thankful to Parenting NI for bringing Karen to Belfast for us to listen to her.”
Comments from professionals who attended the event include: Really enjoyed the morning. Thank you Very enjoyable day, however would have enjoyed having more time to look deeper into the topic Great to hear someone so knowledgeable talk about trauma in an easy to access way Has given me a lot to think about. I will encourage other staff to attend future training Amazing, informative session Very good course, would highly recommend Excellent speaker with great knowledge. Would definitely attend another seminar Excellent training, information was very relevant and helpful. Wish it had been a longer day. Encourage teachers to attend, very interesting Very informative and engaging training session – positive refresher which will be useful in my workplace Great refresher as a professional and parent Fantastic facilitator and morning Key messages were well explained and I will take these forward into my practice. Very thought provoking Excellent seminar Excellent and inspirational training Thoroughly enjoyable and informative. Left me wanting more Karen extremely knowledgeable and likeable. Kept my attention throughout Karen was excellent and very worth the money for the ticket Thank you for the information sheets from Parenting NI – handouts excellent Excellent seminar which should be taken up by everyone across the Board, professional and parents alike, many useful examples of real life practice Informative, interesting. Very accessible information in the way it was presented. Love the parenting patchwork idea and thinking of the womb as the first classroom Amazing speaker – really enjoyed Well organised, interesting mix of participants A great event, very accessible language, brought to life by real life stories. Thank you Fantastic event of such an important and interesting topic. Karen is a fantastic speaker, so knowledgeable. Feel privileged to have had the opportunity to attend Loved this session, so much to think about. Going to bring back loads of positive ideas to work This was excellent training. I have been on many training courses on trauma but this has been the most helpful. I particularly liked the message of HOPE and how we can be part of a child’s journey of renewed hope. It’s a message I will bring to the foster carers I work with – its something that needs reinforced Thoroughly enjoyed this training – never once lost interest which is unusual for me in training Karen was phenomenal, one of the best speakers I have heard. Her metaphors really brought the subject to life. Thank you Excellent event, clear challenge to stop and think about approaches, styles of engagement with children and young people Excellent facilitation of subject matter, very visual slides. Could listen to Karen all day. Brilliant energy and passion A very valuable morning. Karen is so enthusiastic and her passion is amazing. Lots of tips to take away when working with families in our Sure Start setting Excellent seminar which was informative, interesting and provided considerable food for thought. Thank you Working as an early intervention Midwife this was all extremely useful. I enjoyed it immensely. What an inspirational speaker. Has had a big impact. Thank you Karen was a great and inspirational speaker and I believe will have given additional clarity to other professionals on the huge, importance of parents being supported to in turn support their children Absolutely amazing! Best speaker I have heard on such a complex topic! Very inspiring! Thank you
Parenting NI hosted an exciting ‘Make Parenting Work’ networking seminar with leading global expert, Josh Levs with special support from Bank of Ireland and Citi bank.
Josh Levs presented a ‘Make Parenting Work’ networking seminar for professional working parents to explore:
How businesses can engage men on issues of gender equality and diversity How equal caregiving options attract and retain the best employees How to support both female and male employees who seek work-life balance Proven methods to achieve all this while lifting profits
About Key Note Speaker Josh Levs Josh Levs is an entrepreneur, former CNN and NPR journalist, and the leading global expert on issues facing modern fathers in the workplace. From the United Nations to Congress, Oxford and Google, Josh Levs’ powerful talks chart new terrain, advancing everyone’s understandings of men, modern parenthood and gender equality. He is the author of the award- winning book “All In: How Our Work-First Culture Fails Dads, Families, and Businesses–And How We Can Fix It Together” (HarperOne 2015). He now works with corporations, organisations, universities and more, to build policies that support men as equal caregivers, a crucial step toward ensuring equal career opportunities to women. https://joshlevs.com/
Around 50 professionals attended the event in the National Stadium. Evaluation Findings
Venue How Informative was Josh Levs as Key Speaker
Very Very Excellent Excellent Good Good 50% 75% 25% 50%
Food & Refreshment Information Presented was Very Relevant & Useful Good 25% Excellent 43% Very Excellent Good 75% 57%
The Event was Well Paced Overall Level of Satisfaction within the Allotted Time Very Very Good Good 37% 25%
Excellent Excellent 75% 63%
“Great venue, well organised, thought-provoking session” Family Fun Days
It was fantastic to be able to host two family fun events thanks to funding from the Northern Childcare Partnership. We teamed up with Libraries NI and Mini Explorers to host two mornings with families in Cookstown and Larne.
Children had the opportunity to explore emotion based play activities through unique sensory experiences. Mini explorers experienced sounds, lights and bubbles whilst enjoying hands on activities promoting positive relations and communication through carefully planned play areas. The sensory dark den was very popular to stimulate babies and also inclusive for children with additional needs.
As part of the Parenting Week activities the Families Together Project a partnership between Parenting NI and New Life Counselling hosted 2 family fun days in Strabane and Antrim thanks to funding from the Big Lottery. We teamed up with local schools and many other organisations who provided stands at the events. A big thank you to all who supported the events.
Other Parent’s Week activities
Parenting NI supported many other organisations to celebrate Parenting Week, these included: 120 schools Libraries across Northern Ireland Sure Starts Community Groups Childcare settings
Parenting Week Playlist
We asked parents to tell us the songs that reminded them of their children or their parents, which helped us create a #ParentsPlaylist to soundtrack #ParentingWeek. We were overwhelmed with the response. We were delighted that Kerry McClean dedicated a whole show on Thursday of the week on Radio Ulster.
Social Media
Parenting NI was delighted at the amount of support the campaign received on social and especially pleased to have cross party support for our parents and children. The hashtag was lively on Twitter throughout the week with all political parties on board and recognising that parental support ensures the best outcome for children and young people.
It was also great to have the support from Q Radio's Ibe Sesay
Parenting Week 2018 Stats
Parenting Week had another very successful year on social media. This year it was evident that more organisations were getting involved with the week through social media and we also broadened our social media horizons by launching an Instagram page and a Spotify account for our Parents Playlist.
Facebook Our Parenting Week campaign reached 53,600 people on Facebook; this included information on the benefits of a strong Parent Child Relationship, daily tasks for parents to help strengthen their relationships with their children, pictures showing the events throughout the week and support from political parties.
The daily task proved to be very popular with parents with the 5 posts reaching 16,510 users on Facebook and engagement on the page was up 114% on the previous week.
Video content on our Facebook page again highlighted the power of this medium on social media. A video of Charlene explaining about the campaign reaching 2,700 users, this is an easier way for people to access information about the week rather than reading through a post or website article. It was fantastic to have the support of Q Radio’s Ibe Sesay, who posted a video about the week with his two sons on his Facebook which also reached thousands of users.
The number of page likes increased by 140, the number of users following our page now stands at 5,260.
Twitter It was fantastic to see the amount of organisations getting involved and using the hashtag on Twitter, including: Youth Justice Agency Department of Justice NICVA MindWise Employers for Childcare Libraries NI Early Years Playboard Department of Education Autism NI Stranmillis University College Queen’s University Belfast New Life Counselling Northern Trust Princes Trust NI Carers NI Family Support NI Barnardo’s NI
Every political party also either sent out their own tweet or retweeted one of ours thanking them for supporting the week.
As part of the week we asked parents and our staff to tell us about the songs that made them think of their children and/or their parents and created a playlist for the week which was then shared through social media. This created a great deal of opportunity for engagement both on Facebook (more parent contributions) and Twitter which gained input from the Inspire Wellbeing team, the Oh Yeah Music Centre and radio DJs including, Ibe Sesay, Stephen Clements, Ralph McLean and Kerry McLean.
Across the week our tweets made 80,111 impressions and with the amount of others using the hashtag the impact would have been much greater. This is a fantastic reach and up massively (249%) on the previous year.
We also gained 42 new followers in the week, taking the total number of Twitter followers to 2,977.
Instagram Over the past couple of years Instagram has become incredibly popular, it’s one of the fastest growing social platforms around at the minute and currently has over one billion active users per month. We wanted to use the week to see how the platform might work for Parenting NI and trial the Stories feature which would allow us to create more short video content.
We are pleased with how it went through the week, gaining 175 followers since its launch and look forward to seeing how we can grow and develop it as another social platform to promote the organisation.
Media Radio interviews were completed with U105 and Downtown/Cool FM for their news bulletin, which went out every hour on Saturday.
Kerry McLean liked the Parents Playlist concept so much she dedicated her All Request Thursday programme to Parenting Week. As well as being great to have a 2 hour radio programme inspired by Parenting Week, it also highlighted the week and created a lot of discussion with Kerry’s listeners both on social media and in the broadcast about happy family memories. To promote the week and Parenting NI services an advert ran on Cool FM with a variety of slots across Monday – Friday.
Website Our website was accessed 3,883 times during the week over a quarter of October’s total views. With Parenting Week related pages (resources, press release, blog) being accessed 338 times, meaning other views were targeted at our services. We also received 41 Expressions of Interest through our website during Parenting Week.
A massive thank you to everyone for backing the Power of the Parent Child Relationship!
From all the Board of Trustees and Staff at Parenting NI
Resources
A range of resources where designed to be offered to schools across Northern Ireland which would help them explore Parenting Week in class and with parents. Resources included a PowerPoint exploring the key messages of the campaign for schools to use with their parents and classroom activities such as describing your family’s superpowers, favourite family activities, conversation starters and active listening exercises, all to highlight the importance of communication and family relationships.
We were delighted at the amount of schools which wanted to receive packs this year, with engagement from them up massively on the previous year, 120 schools asked for the resources. Many of the schools were very enthusiastic about using the resources in school and trying to engage more parents in school life.
One principal, Mr Graham Gault from Maghaberry Primary School told us in the lead up to the week about his plans for the resources and why they were keen to get involved:
“I’m going to do the powerpoint with parents. It is excellent. Thank you. I’ve also just bought a couple of fridge magnets for every child and we’re going to do some of the classroom activities in school which children can then go home and stick on their fridge, to further prompt their parents to engage.
“We know that children from homes in which parents adopt effective approaches to managing behaviour and development are better able to cope with the normal struggles of life and set appropriate boundaries for themselves. The resources and support provided by Parenting NI will be very useful in helping our parents reflect on how important relationships in the home are in creating the context in which children can flourish.”
Presentation This presentation template was designed and developed for teachers or professionals working with families to deliver the key messages of “The Power of the Parent Child Relationship” to parents.
Daily Tasks
This Parenting Week we promoted simple tasks that parents could complete each day that would help with building parent-child relationships.
Conversation Starters Talking and asking your child questions is a way of learning more about your child. These have been designed so it makes it hard to give just one word answers. Give our
Other Activities Available included: