Curious Minds

Family Works helps schools

Members of Curious Minds recently met up with Alison Grimshaw, Wirral's Behaviour Support Manager, to see the work of Family Works. We were very impressed with the type of work they have been doing and the effect this is having on families and communities in the Wirral.

Family Works helps schools to work in partnership with parents to help children to be happy and successful. It is an eight week programme with weekly two hour sessions. After a fun, relaxed and interactive introduction there are seven workshops. Each focussing on one of the following core skills:

Self esteem;
Motivation
Attention;
Co-operation and collaboration;
Understanding and managing feelings
Empathy
Social skills.

Parents learn the importance of each skill and how to work with their child’s school so that:

Behaviour is managed in a consistent way between home and school;
Parents can work with schools to enhance their child’s learning skills and their emotional health and well being (positive mental health);

The children join their parents to enjoy a family activity which enables tutors to build a strong relationship with each parent and an opportunity to model key Family Works Strategies.

In Wirral Family Works is successful in reaching parents including those that have previously been hard to reach. Last year nearly 2,000 parents of Wirral children in Foundation Two engaged with the programme.

Robust evaluation highlights that Family Works has a positive impact on learning, behaviour and emotional health and well being.

Other Family programmes include: