Our Parent to Parent Support Programme is based in Halton, offering parents and their families the highest level of support through trained volunteers and partnership work.  Empowering families to make positive changes, take control of their lives and address any barriers.  The support offered to families is both emotional and practical depending upon the needs of the family.  Here is an example case study of the kind of support we offer through this programme.  Any names have been changed to protect the privacy of those involved.

The family were referred to the programme as they had been subject to Child In Need processes and their social worker suggested the family having some emotional support for mum, as well as support with family management within the home.

Mum has had a history with mental health issues from childhood. Her eldest daughter, who is now 18 is also displaying issues around her own mental and has begun to self-harm.  Their relationship has deteriorated over the past year and is impacting on the younger children.

Mums mental health is low which was impacting on her becoming very isolated.  Home conditions were very cluttered.

Over the past 6 months, the Venus P2P volunteer has worked with mum on a weekly basis to support her in getting on top of the home conditions and establishing a routine for the children. The children have also become involved with the home management and are part of a rota system for doing the dishes and putting the toys and clothes away etc.  Over to the volunteer, to tell you in her words how support progressed,

"Mum has been able to begin decluttering her home although she has a lot of emotional attachment to most of the items.  In the beginning we worked slowly through the items and she discussed with me their story and reasons if any why she needed to keep them.  Mum was reluctant to throw away many of the items until I began telling her of the programme I was volunteering for…P2P, when I told mum about how some people we support could benefit from the things she no longer needed e.g. baby baths etc mum began to let some things go.

By the following week when I arrived for the visit she had piled up a huge amount of items she wished to donate to the families. She spoke about how she had been in a similar position herself when she had had her first baby and that she would really like to help some of the other families who were struggling. Mum seemed noticeably happier in her attitude and was more positive about her own situation. She asked me to support her in contacting the adult learning team to get on to a course for developing her own skills in crafts. Since mum has begun her adult learning course, her daughter has also enrolled as she said she would like to begin to spend sometime working on her relationship with mum. The younger children are saying that there are less fights within the family and they like having more room to play."

Since the P2P volunteer has been working with the family, home conditions are much improved but still needing some support.  Mum and daughter aremworking on building a more positive relationship with each other which has indirectly had a positive impact on the family as a whole.

Mum told us how she feels about the support provided,

“I get up of a morning now and am ok to face the day, especially if I know that [my volunteer] is coming today, she has helped me so much but I know there is still a lot more I want to change for me and the kids”

If you would like to make a referral to our P2P programme, or any of our other projects, you can do so through our website, via email or by telephoning us.