OUR AIM is to provide support for parents to enable them to improve their parenting confidence and develop their self-esteem at their own pace so that they can give their children the best start in life
‘PLAY BUS’
Home-Start Ceredigion recruits and trains volunteers to emotionally and practically support families who are going through a difficult time through home-visiting and play groups. Covid put a stop to our services but we were able to find ways round it my weekly telephone, facetime calls to each family to make sure that they were able to offload their concerns and worries during this really life changing period.
Post Covid there are still restrictions on meeting up so as a way around this we sent a survey monkey through face book to ask everyone what services we could provide to help them gain confidence to overcome their fears and start the process of meeting up/mixing with others. Feedback was that they would love to meet up again but just did not know haw we could do this! To overcome restrictions we would like to take our services to the families through a play bus so that the children can build on social skills that they have been denied throughout the pandemic and have some fun!
WE AIM to take the BUS to rural housing estates to TARGET families who lack trust in services and through the children gain their trust in us so that we can engage with them and offer our support. The sessions with consist of Play and a healthy snack for the children and a safe zone for parents so that they can share with us their concerns or worries.
Historically, parents have been able to depend to some extent on a local network of extended family, but in today’s fast-moving society families are becoming more separated, meaning that many parents of young children lack any support from wider family. These socio-economic factors, often combined with factors such as perinatal illness, mental health issues, substance misuse and domestic violence, mean that many families in Ceredigion face extreme difficulties in coping with the pressures of parenthood and providing opportunities for young children. Furthermore, severe cuts to local government budgets have impacted heavily on delivery of preventative early help services to such families, as local authorities redirect budgets to their statutory provision. These funding reductions are having a severe and immediate impact on the level of support available to vulnerable families with young children