East Anglia Celebrating Family Project

Celebrating Family Diocesan Projects: Diocese of East Anglia

The Diocese of East Anglia has received a grant of Ł72,966 over three years from the Celebrating Family Fund to employ a Marriage & Family Life Ministry Diocesan coordinator. Her role is to develop trained and equipped networks of facilitators to deliver on-going marriage preparation and parenting support.

The East Anglia Diocesan Commission for Marriage and Family Life was set up in 2005, in response to Listening 2004: My Family My Church. In East Anglia, the survey’s findings indicated that the church needed to offer greater support to couples, to parents and carers, and to families. A subsequent audit of diocesan marriage and family life services by the Commission revealed that the clergy were undertaking the majority of marriage preparation and family support-work themselves. There were pockets of excellence, but in some areas, a lack of resources, both human and financial, was resulting in insufficient support for the community.

East Anglia is a sprawling diocese, with many small, isolated, rural communities as well as several highly populated, economically deprived regional centres. In the light of these demographics, it was clear to the Commission that a coordinated approach to family ministry was crucial. Therefore, when the Celebrating Family fund was created, the diocese seized the opportunity to apply for funding to appoint a dedicated Marriage and Family Life Coordinator. East Anglia’s bid was successful and Mary Clark (see below), was appointed. Mary, a trained nurse, who has worked in Norfolk as a health visitor for many years was one of the original coordinators of the Listening 2004 project for East Anglia. Mary took up the post in October 2008 after her return from Zambia, where she was working on a two year community based HIV/AIDS project with her husband.

One of Mary’s key priorities, in partnership with the Commission, was to extend the provision of Marriage Preparation services across the diocese. Marriage Preparation is offered to couples in the months leading up to their wedding and is designed to help them reflect on their developing relationship, to lay solid foundations of communication and mutual respect and to give them the reassurance that the church will be there to support them throughout their journey of marriage. Large parts of the diocese were, however, not covered by a trained Marriage Preparation Provider, and couples, although willing to attend Marriage Preparation sessions, were not prepared to travel a great distance to do so.

The Commission decided that the most effective method of providing immediate, accessible Marriage Preparation would be through the national charity, Marriage Care. Marriage Care was well represented in the area but lacked manpower in the regions. And so, in February 2010 Mary started the search for volunteer trainee Marriage Care Providers. The subsequent interviewing and selection process (undertaken by Mary, members of the Commission and representatives from Marriage Care) produced 11 suitable candidates, all of whom underwent their training in October 2010. One of the Marriage Care trainees commented that the training was, ‘excellent in both content and presentation. It was based on Catholic teaching around Marriage, whilst at the same time recognising the need to be realistic about modern society in order to engage with people.’ The new Marriage Care Providers will start working in January 2011, attached to Marriage Care Centres across Suffolk and Norfolk, significantly increasing the provision of Marriage Preparation throughout the diocese.

For the Commission, another key objective has been to increase the provision of Parenting Support courses in the diocese. These courses are designed to help parents appreciate their central role in shaping their children’s behaviour and to equip all parents with the skills and confidence to nourish the human and Christian well-being of their children. Although parenting courses were already offered by local statutory bodies, there was a demand for programmes with a specifically Christian bias. In fact, Norfolk County Council have identified parenting programmes as a priority and have been keen to endorse the work of the Church in this area.

After receiving Parenting Support Facilitation training, Mary piloted a parenting course at St John’s Primary School, Norwich. One participant commented, “I was at my wit's end, but after two weeks I am already feeling that I'm not such a terrible mum after all.’ Another said, ‘I feel like a proper mum again, and not just a servant. My feelings are like when they were babies”. Mary has since trained five Learning Support Assistants from Notre Dame primary school, Norwich as parenting facilitators, using a self-designed course, based on Family Caring Trust and other materials. This group have independently run one parenting course and are booked to run a further course in January 2011. Mary has also trained a group of parents and catechists, from the Sacred Heart and St Oswald parish in Peterborough, as facilitators, and they are planning to run their first course in 2011.

On 1 October 2011, After three excellent years in post, Mary was succeeded by Edwina Griffin as East Anglia Diocese's Marriage and Family Life Coordinator. Edwina who is married and lives in the diocese has a professional background in grant management and administration and has spent the past three years raising her young daughter. Edwina will assist the Commission in a range of pastoral initiatives including researching the provision of greater parish support for people with learning difficulties, helping to organise the annual Marriage and Family Life Celebration Day and developing the provision of parenting support programmes in local schools across the diocese. Edwina is also hoping to introduce the Passionist Family Groups Movement to selected pilot parishes in Suffolk and Norfolk. For more information please contact MFL Coordinator Edwina Sinclair.

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