CEO update – Parent Participation

 

We are piloting Ivison Trust parent peer support groups for those living with child exploitation in Liverpool & West Yorkshire. This arose from parents regular feedback about the ‘parenting programmes’ they have been requested to attend by children’s services and how at best they felt less effective for extra-familial harm and at worse further isolated parents who felt their parenting was under attack. In response the charity is piloting groupwork for parents in a relational model that is strengths based and trauma led.

Parent webinars have been running across the country- in response to parents’ request for early identification and awareness raising. There has been a lot of feedback that parents have reached out to services post event. This needs to increase, but as there are limits on our capacity, we are launching Train the Trainer packages for professionals. We hope that these packages will enable continued awareness and early support to families across England and Wales.

Based on parent feedback we have set up an out of hours support line which runs on Friday and Saturday Evenings. 100’s of calls has been received in what will be the one-year anniversary this week. We also have piloted a counselling service in West Yorkshire as a result of parent concerns about waiting lists to access therapy and then the lack of understanding around exploitation within therapeutic settings. Many parents reporting back that having a service which specialises in both child exploitation and offers therapeutic counselling was desperately needed. The evaluation of the service has been extremely positive and we are pleased that we can continue running this next year and offer the support wider.