Supporting families in Allenton
Allenton Big Local continues to fund a series of activities delivered by Nacro Derby Osmaston Family Project to help parents and families in the Allenton Big Local area.
Support is offered to families in a variety of ways, including advice on parenting skills in the home, liaison with schools where children have been excluded, and by offering advice and help with things like assessments, school transport, meetings with schools, and guardianship issues.
Those benefiting are families from the Allenton Big Local area who do not meet the usual criteria for statutory support. Some families receive intensive support from Nacro to help them deal with difficult issues such as the threat of eviction, other families receive support over a shorter period to help them overcome a specific problem.
One woman who has received support from the service is now looking into how she herself can become a family support worker, so that she can help other families in need.
Comments from some of the families who have received help:
Our family time is much better now. We get on, most of the time!
We enjoyed playing the games, it has made us share now and we have more fun.
The support was really good. It made me really look at what I was doing as a parent and how me and my husband had different views on how to do things. We try to work together now.
I have changed the way I put in boundaries and rewards and it’s working !!
I didn’t always agree with my worker, but I did put changes into place. We now have good routines that seem to work most of the time, but I need to keep on top of it and keep looking at the handouts I was given.
In addition to parenting skills and support, Nacro also delivers healthy eating and cooking sessions for parents as an eight week course. The sessions increase knowledge about food and the health benefits of cooking simple meals that cost very little. The course also increases parental confidence around healthy eating and encourages them to try new foods and follow and adapt recipes to their individual families tastes.