A group of Warwickshire family workers have chosen National Parenting Week (22-26 October) to share details of a special parenting event.

Warwickshire’s parenting team organised the event

Staff from a diverse range of services who work with Warwickshire families got together last week to review family support in the county and celebrate the local integrated parenting workforce.

Workers from a number of settings and professional backgrounds including education, voluntary services, children’s centres, youth services, health etc shared and celebrated good practice and discussed future opportunities to work together for the benefit of children, young people and families.

The Celebrating Parenting Day was organised by the county council’s Parenting Development Team to offer services a chance to reflect on their practice, promote integrated working and look at taking into the future the methods of support and intervention that evidence best outcomes.

Anna Standing from the Family Information Service guides practitioners around the Game of Life.

A series of workshops took place on areas which often pose additional challenges to families and workers such as, learning disabilities, sexual health and parenting challenges with children and teenagers.

This event took place in the run up to Parents’ Week to get everyone in the mood to celebrate the annual campaign from the National Family and Parenting Institute to raise awareness of the information and support available for families.

Operations Manager for Family and Parenting Support, Caroline Thompson commented; “This annual event allows us to celebrate all the integrated work of a variety of family and support services across Warwickshire, whilst also exploring good practice methods and promoting services, which serve to better meet the needs of children, young people and families.

“Everyone is able to share ideas and resources to extend their repertoire, build links with other services and improve access to support for families they work with.”

Warwickshire County Councillor Heather Timms, cabinet member for children, young people and families said: “We recognise that families come in all shapes and sizes and all want different things from services, so the support we deliver has to be adaptable to meet these needs.

“Last week’s event offered an ideal opportunity for all our children and family services to look more closely at the activities they offer families and whether they could do anything better.”

For more information about family and parenting support in Warwickshire contact the Family Information Service on 0845 090 8044 or visit www.warwickshire.gov.uk/fis

To find out more about national Parents’ Week visit www.parentsweek.org.uk