Supporting Parents
Being a parent isn’t easy. Everyone has their ups and downs and sometimes we don’t know where to turn.
The Change Project can help you with a range of parenting issues such as helping your child through difficulties such as bullying or parental separation, or dealing with your child’s behaviour towards you or other siblings or the impact on your own relationship.
And what about you? Parents can find it exhausting trying to juggle all the balls of parenthood and it has impacts on their own relationship. We can help with that too through our Relationship Hub or Domestic Abuse services.
Family Support Service
The Change Project’s Family Support Service is designed to work alongside our community family counselling services. Family Support Workers offer practical support to families struggling to deal with the every day issues in life such as budgeting, parent/child routines for bed and school time, and cooking for the family.
These practitioners work with families to identify family needs and improve outcomes by tailoring support for children, young people and families to make sure that needs are met, engagement in support is sustained and outcomes for children, young people and families are achieved.
Practitioners promote positive behaviour in children and young people by working with parents to understand the reasons for and consequences of their child’s behaviour and implement proactive strategies to encourage positive behaviour.
Practitioners work with parents to identify the boundaries of acceptable and unacceptable behaviour and to reflect and acknowledge positive aspects of their child’s behaviour. Practitioners work in a child centred way that promotes trust and active participation of all family members showing empathy and understanding for their feelings and points of view.
Therapy for Children
Worried that your child is anxious?
Not achieving their potential at school?
Acting out towards you?
Bullying their siblings?
Aggressive towards their step parent?
Won’t talk about your separation and what it means to them?
The range of problems that can be faced by children and young people is huge and here at the Change Project we can help. Seeking help for your child is a responsible act by a parent who just doesn’t know what else to do for their child or where a third party might be the best way ahead.
The Change Project can provide counselling for young people and for children, whatever the issue they are struggling with.
STEP UP – Child to Parent Violence
Step Up is an exciting programme from the USA which the Change Project have been authorised to use in the UK.
The Step-Up curriculum is designed for adolescents who have been abusive towards parents or family members. The curriculum uses a cognitive behavioural, skills based approach partnered with restorative practice, to help prevent the use of violent and abusive behaviours in the family. Teens learn and practice nonviolent, respectful ways of communicating and resolving conflict with family members, in a group setting with other parents and teens.
The curriculum employs best practice and evidence based approaches including cognitive behavioural exercises, skill development, solution focused and motivational interviewing strategies to help young people make specific behavioural changes. A collaborative, family based approach is used in the family groups where parents and young people learn and practice skills with feedback and support from others. In the parent group, parents learn a model of respectful parenting that balances leadership and positive support, promoting non-violence and respect in the family.
Treating adolescent violence in the family is both intervention and prevention. When families assimilate a respectful family model and young people experience success with using the behaviours that support it, they learn lifelong lessons about relationships. These values carry forward into their future relationships with intimate partners and their own families.
Caring Dads
Caring Dads is a 17-week group-work programme to help fathers value their children. The course has been developed to engage men in the process of examining their fathering and motivating them to instigate change. The programme is designed to increase men’s awareness and the application of child centred fathering. Dads will build awareness of, and responsibility for, abuse and neglectful fathering. We will support them in understanding the impact of domestic abuse and maltreatment of children and help them to rebuild trust and plan for the future.
Eligibility to attend
- Identification of concerns about abusive or neglectful parenting or exposure of children to domestic abuse
- The father must have direct contact with at least one child
- The father must be referred by an agency
- Father’s need to be able to comply with the assessment process, which includes attending a suitability assessment and a willingness to discuss their situation
- If you have any families in Essex who you feel would benefit from this programme and would like further information please call us on 07713 307636 or use the contact page