Family Support
Family Support Work
‘Family Support is a style of work and a wide range of activities that strengthen positive informal social networks through community based programmes and services. The main focus of these services is on early intervention aiming to promote and protect the health, well-being and rights of all children, young people and their families. At the same time particular attention is given to those who are vulnerable or at risk’.
The FRC provides individual programmes of family support designed to meet specific needs of parents, children and families where issues have been highlighted and are having a negative impact on the children. The support may be around one to one parent coaching in the home, advocacy, budgeting advice and linking families to other appropriate services.
Parents Plus Early Years
This is an evidence-based parenting course promoting confidence, learning and positive behaviour in young children aged 1 to 6 years. Drawing on well-researched ideas about child development, and parent-child communication, the Parents Plus Early Years Programme is ideal for parents who want to maximise their children’s learning, language and social development, as well as reduce behaviour problems, while ensuring their children grow up happy and emotionally secure. The programme is suitable both for children within the normal range of development as well as children with special needs, such as ADHD, speech and language and other developmental difficulties.
Parents Plus Adolescent
The Parents Plus Adolescents Programme considers how parents can connect with and build good relationships with their teenage children aged 11-16, while also being firm and influential in their lives. Topics include getting to know and connecting with your teenager, communicating positively and effectively, building your teenager’s self-esteem and confidence, negotiating rules and boundaries, teaching teenagers responsibility, positive discipline for teenagers, managing conflict and solving problems together.
Family Communications
This is a skills based parenting programme aligned with an approach that is preventative, empowering, building on family strengths, enhancing self-esteem and a sense of being able to influence events in one’s life. While the positive parenting programme covers behaviour management skills for parents, it also covers all aspects of family life or the development of other processes in families that can increase their resilience in times of strain or struggle which parents face. In particular there is a focus in this programme on clear and direct communication as one of the keys skills that can be employed to accomplish these aims.
NVR (Non Violent Resistance)
The Non Violent Resistance (NVR) model is a pioneering approach which includes a brief, systemic and evidence-based response to child-to-parent violence and abuse. It aims to empower and support parents / carers in preventing and responding to the violent and controlling behaviour of children and teenagers.
The NVR Programme is suitable for any parent / carer who feels controlled, intimidated or threatened by their child / teenager. It is also for any parent / carer who feels that they have to adapt their own behaviour because of threats or use of abuse or violence from their child or teenager.
Rainbows
‘Rainbows is a free, voluntary service for children and young people experiencing loss following bereavement and parental separation. The rainbows service is an inclusive service to support children experiencing grief and loss resulting from bereavement/parental separation/parental relationship breakdown and divorce. Attending the programme gives children an opportunity to meet with other children of a similar age and loss experience, at a minimum of 3 months after the loss’.
Meitheal
Meitheal is a national support model led by Tusla – Child and Family Agency, which can help you and your child to get the supports you need, easily, locally and when you need it. The kinds of services that might be involved in Meitheal are schools, youth services, family resource centres, medical services and others like these. Meitheal is a case co-ordination process for families with additional needs who require multi-agency intervention but who do not meet the threshold for referral to the Social Work Department under Children First. Practitioners in different agencies can use and lead on Meitheal so that they can communicate and work together more effectively to bring together a range of expertise, knowledge and skills to meet the needs of the child and family within their community.
Examples of the challenges that Meitheal could help with are problems at school, a child feeling down, not getting on with your child, family problems, coping with illness or bereavement and difficult behaviour.
You may already be receiving support from different services but you are finding it difficult to deal with all of them at once. Meitheal can help you to get the support that is best for your child, in a coordinated manner.
For further information on any of our programmes, please contact us on (041) 9812230 or (087) 6443364.