Support to work with parents and families

Originally launched on 1 April 2010, our new remit for the support to work with parents and families programme has been agreed with the Department for Education.

The programme was initiated following the transfer of responsibility for supporting the parenting and family workforce to CWDC from the National Academy for Parenting Practitioners in March 2010. Our aim is to provide support to the workforce that ensures they have the right skills, competencies and knowledge to work effectively with parents and families.

The reduction to CWDC budget as a result of the 6 billion pound budget cuts across Departments means that there are some changes to what was previously announced to the work we will deliver.

The details of our programme are being finalised but there are some key elements that we can confirm:

Parenting programmes
The project to fund places on training to deliver parenting programmes has now been launched, with 1,000 places on evidence based parenting programmes being made available to workers in priority groups and services. Priority groups for the training places will be key workers providing intensive support to families with multiple problems and practitioners working in Sure Start children’s centres or extended services in schools.

Outreach training
Training delivery on the Families Going Forward offer is proceeding as planned while we await further ministerial clarification around this project. Delivery on the specialist training is currently on hold.

Commissioning Toolkit
We will continue to work with the National Academy for Parenting Research at King's College on the continued provision of the Commissioning Toolkit. This resource is an online database providing information and guidance on the quality and effectiveness of different parenting programmes.

Web resources
We will increase the amount of resources available for the parenting and families workforce on this website.

600 WWP places
We will provide access to 600 WWP places on Work with Parents qualifications for 600 practitioners who are key workers providing intensive support to families with multiple problems or practitioners working in Sure Start children’s centres or extended services in schools.

Further information on our programme and the projects to be delivered above will be made available as soon as we are able to do so. Until that time these pages will only provide limited information.