Hallam Celebrating Family Project

Celebrating Family Diocesan Projects: Diocese of Hallam

The Diocese of Hallam has received a grant of Ł56,409 over three years from the Celebrating Family Fund to employ a Parenting Skills Facilitator at Hallam Family Focus. The project aims to encourage parents to understand their role in shaping and re-shaping their children's behaviour by providing skills based parenting courses and to help parents to appreciate their role in communicating and passing on the faith by offering opportunities for reflection in a non-judgemental environment.

Hallam Diocese has an excellent history of providing practical parenting support to both Catholic families and the extended community – through Hallam Caring Services’ Family Focus Project. Nearly 100 facilitators have been accredited to lead parenting courses, enabling nearly a thousand parents to enjoy the benefits of experiencing a course in their school, parish or community setting. However staff changes and re-structuring meant that by the time the Celebrating Family Fund was created in 2007, only a handful of schools still had teachers and Learning Support Assistants available to facilitate parenting support programmes.

With continued demand for courses from parents and head teachers, and a desire to demonstrate in a public and practical way the importance placed by the Catholic Church on the role of parents, the diocese jumped at the chance to apply for funds to appoint a dedicated Parenting Skills Facilitator. Laura Rendell, a mother of two, was appointed in 2008 and has since qualified as an accredited parenting facilitator and trainer. She gets enormous satisfaction from helping parents to recognise their key role in shaping their children’s behaviour; the benefits of positive communication and the tools with which to achieve it. She also greatly appreciates having the time to build those critical relationships of trust between herself and local parents.

Starting work in the Corpus Christi parish – an economically deprived, ex-mining community, where chronic ill-health affects a significant percentage of local residents - Laura’s warmth, openness and commitment have enabled her to gain the trust and confidence of the community. In the three parish primary schools Laura’s creative approach has won the hearts and minds of people initially sceptical about the benefits of parenting courses. Non-committal ‘taster’ sessions and a series of well attended mothers’ coffee/prayer mornings are just two of her methods of recruiting parents for her parenting programmes. After attending the mothers’ coffee/prayer morning one mother wrote, “It provides opportunities to discuss the everyday struggles involved with raising a family, allowing you to realise that you are not alone.” Indeed, on the same subject, the Head teacher of St Helen’s Catholic Primary School said in a letter to the Project, “Our school has the lowest percentage of baptised pupils in the diocese and yet I know how much this group of mothers feel a sense of comfort and togetherness in this relaxed, meditative environment.” To date, Laura has run 6 successful 5-15 parenting courses, 2 teenage programmes and is due to run her first course for parents of pre-school children in January 2011. The success of the Corpus Christi parish has been such that Laura has now expanded her provision to include the Barnsley deanery.

The bonds created between parents and grandparents on the parenting sessions have proved to be lasting ones, and the positive effect on the participants’ lives are often dramatic. In fact there has been a recognised ‘ripple’ effect from the courses – children are behaving better at home and subsequently in class, which has a positive impact on the whole community. One mother wrote, “Life is worth living again, my house is not a constant battle ground, and my husband thinks he is living in a different house.”

The course provides parents with a safe and non-judgemental environment in which to explore their feelings and concerns. This degree of openness, of course, confers upon all those present the responsibility to deal sensitively and confidentially with the information shared. But, as Laura herself commented, the setting may often be a rather shabby presbytery with a few worn out chairs, but within those four walls, parents and grandparents feel able to talk and to cry, and to share their deepest, often previously unspoken, thoughts.

“I was very sceptical of whether or not it would work, but I was so fed up with all the arguments I was having with my four year old daughter that I thought, why not give it a go? Before I started the course, every day was an up-hill battle. I was feeling really sad and depressed. I thought I was failing as a mum. What I didn’t realise was that I was being more like a friend to her, rather than a mum, not giving her appropriate boundaries. Before I did the course I was considering having no more children because I felt such a failure as a mother, but all I will say now is, “Bring it on!”

The Celebrating Family Fund will continue to fund Laura’s post until August 2011, after which time the diocese will be seeking alternative, independent means of funding to ensure the future of this valuable community-based project. For more information please contact project manager Susan Tym or project worker Laura Rendell.

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