Parental Involvement in Decision-Making

1. Parental Involvement in Decision-Making

2. Overview • The importance of parental involvement • Why involve parents? • Degrees of involvement • Strategies for engaging parents • Impact of involvement in decision-making • Parent and professional views • Implications for Children’s Centres

3. Introduction • The importance of parental involvement in decision-making • Sure Start Strategy explicit about involvement of parents • In consultation • In participation • In knowledge sharing • In feedback about services

4. Why Involve Parents? • Inclusiveness • Capacity Building • Sustainability • Benefits • Local knowledge • Able to identify gaps in provision • Can monitor and feed back on service provision • A sense of ownership • Parents actively involved in influencing the quality of life of their own and other children where they live

5. Evidence Base • Setting up Stage reports: (x8) • Surveys (x16) • Parental involvement: topics (x4) • Interagency perspectives (x6)

6. Key Themes • Parental involvement in decision-making happens at a number of levels and in a variety of ways • Parental involvement works in terms of affecting the shape of services and service use • A number of strategies have been effective in promoting the involvement of diverse groups of parents: fathers; young parents; travellers • There are challenges

7. Involvement in Decision-making: Continuum Informal Formal Working groupsHoliday activities Parent Rep. groups Some or all of whom sit on partnerships Blanket consultation Delivery plan Surveys Consultation in situ On-going feedback from parents at activities, courses, trips Feeder groups Forums Parent network

8. Impact of Parental Involvement Surveys • Survey of parent’s views “Family Friendly” standard for library services Consultation in situ • At Travellers site site based service delivery increased immunization rates • Consultation with fathers fathers choice of activities 659 father/male carer attendances in 2004

9. Impact of Parental Involvement Consultation in situ • Consultation with Bangladeshi community over barriers to health meet the professionals day identification of Bengali speaking GP for outreach surgeries sessional workers in community Working Groups • Summer holiday activity group development of 7 holiday activities attended by 750 parents and children

10. Strategies for Involving Parents • Building trust and relationships – informal events • Talking with experienced Sure Start parents • Confidence building • Informal ways of talking about Sure Start • Parent-only meetings to discuss their views • Parent-friendly meetings with professionals which: - Avoid jargon - Give parents enough information about what’s being discussed - Regularly give parents the chance to speak Value opinions; consult regularly; briefly; face-to-face; feed back results; act on suggestions Brief; accessible; with incentives; follow up at activities; follow up mailings; follow up phone calls; Making decisions about the whole programme Consultation in situ at activities/events Surveys

11. Parents’ Views of Involvement in Decision-Making • On being trained as a Parent Representative: • Now we can put something back into the programme instead of taking out all the time • We can take the views and queries of other parents who go to the playgroups to the meetings, and take information from the meetings back to them • We can suggest agenda items

12. Professionals’ Views of Parental Involvement • The benefits of parents and senior managers working together is that they have a tendency to keep each other’s feet on the ground (Sure Start Executive) • It’s been torturous, and difficult changing our ways of working, and really listening to parents; it’s brought us into the 21st Century! (Health Manager) • The draft Children’s Act puts more emphasis on partnership with parents, and that’s good, because parents are concerned about good outcomes too, not just about being parents (Social Services Executive)

13. Challenges At first, it was all over our heads…professionals are listening more now (Parent) • Organisational • Takes time and resources to develop and sustain at the formal levels • Challenges organisational culture and practices • Language • Affects time tables and priorities • Process • Issue of how representative Parent Rep. views are and approaches to addressing this • Wider Parent Network events • Consultation at Fun Days

14. Children’s Centre Guidance • “…ensure the views of children, parents/carers and families are valued and taken into account in the planning, delivery and evaluation of services. • “Particular attention will need to be paid to their views on how to ensure these services will be accessible, and culturally appropriate for the communities they serve. Sure Start Unit, A Sure Start Children’s Centre for Every Community; Phase 2 Planning Guidance (2006-08) July 2005

15. Implications for Children’s Centres • Parental involvement in decision-making works in a number of ways • Many more parents have been involved at informal levels of decision-making than at formal levels • To sustain it, there will need to be dedicated resources – dedicated staff • Approaches to parental involvement need to be embedded in practice at each stage of service design and delivery • Approaches need to be stepped, flexible, responsive, diverse and on-going