To recognise and promote the importance that parents and carers have in the lives of our children and young people Oldham Children’s Trust has produced a Parenting Support Strategy.
Oldham Parenting Support Strategy aims to help all organisations that work with children, young people and families to provide parenting support that is proactive, accessible, well coordinated, inclusive and of good quality.
The strategy has been put together by Oldham Children’s Trust. It covers parenting from pregnancy to when a child is aged 19 and focuses on supporting parents as they do one of the hardest jobs in the world.
During a child’s early years the changes parents face in adapting to parenthood can be difficult and the decisions they need to make about issues such as their working arrangements, childcare and changing financial circumstances can be bewildering. Similarly, the parents of today’s teenagers can experience a fear of their child getting involved in risky or anti-social behaviour.
Parenting is not an easy task and we know that most parents do an excellent job. However, there may be times when some parents may need a bit of extra help, information and emotional or practical support.
The strategy aims to help the different organisations that provide services to families do just that – make sure that all parents can access information easily and when they need it.
Oldham already has many excellent parenting support services available for parents and the Parenting Support Strategy will build on this good practice, identify gaps in services and develop the children’s workforce accordingly to meet needs of all families in Oldham.