Good parenting

Parents and the home environment are the most important factors in shaping a child’s wellbeing, writes Angela Sibson.

In recent years the importance of parenting has moved up the public policy agenda, leading to a huge growth in services for parents.

Spending on family support services by  local authorities has been increasing at an estimated 11% a year.

There are now around 20,000 parenting  practitioners in England. They have varied educational backgrounds ranging from support workers to family therapists, child psychologists and specialist social workers.

 The National Academy for Parenting  Practitioners has been set up to shape and promote high-quality parenting services. A centre of training, research and knowledge exchange, the parenting academy will ensure that the support parents  receive from this broad spectrum of practitioners is based on evidence of what really works.

The parenting academy is working with  local authorities to make this a reality. As well as our training programme, our regional development team supports commissioners of parenting services in drawing up and  implementing their strategies.

The parenting academy has also launched  the commissioning toolkit – an online database of more than 100 parenting programmes available in England.

Programmes range from those that help  parents raise the self-esteem of their children to more specialist targeted interventions for parents of children with behavioural or mental health problems. The toolkit outlines the programmes’ target audience, content, training requirements, aims and, most importantly, rates them according to their quality and effectiveness.

The toolkit was developed in consultation  with local authority parenting commissioners. It was launched at the end of January and we are now working with councils to find out how they use the toolkit and how we can make it even better.

City of York council told us that finding the right parenting programmes can be difficult. It is hard to know what is available, which parents the programmes are suited to, what they aim to do and what the evidence is that they work. They could talk to other  councils, but recognised that what worked for neighbouring authorities might not necessarily work for them.

They use the toolkit to give them an  overview of what is on offer, look at each possibility in more depth, and talk to local partners to identify the programme that best meets local needs and works with existing provision.

Not only do parents have the right to expect high-quality support which is proven to make a difference, but local authorities need to be able to justify why they are spending money on one parenting service and not another – and the toolkit will enable local authorities to provide the most effective support.

Feedback from local authorities will help us develop the toolkit further. We will make sure all local authorities have the information they need to plan and deliver the services that parents and their children deserve.

For more information see www.commissioningtoolkit.org

Angela Sibson is chief executive of the National Academy for Parenting Practitioners