Solihull bespoke support: supporting parent confidence and developing parent-led services

Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council undertook a mini early years peer challenge early in 2024. Following the challenge the LGA’s Children’s Improvement Team provided Solihull with six days bespoke support to implement some of the key recommendations. One was to to further develop confident parenting and parent lead support in Solihull coordinated through the new and developing Family Hubs.

The mini challenge included conversations with families, staff, commissioners and managers and a key theme which came out was about engaging and supporting parents. There was a general consensus that many families search online as a first port of call for parenting advice and support, and that this did not always have a positive impact. As parents stated,

Google searches make me feel like I am doing something wrong or should be doing something I’m not”

You can look for information online but have to remember that Google will tell you are dying if you simply have a headache”.

It was also noted that since lockdown and the ever-growing presence of social media there was no longer the norm of parents getting out to baby groups, stay and play sessions and the like. Parent confidence in joining new groups, trying new activities, in particular with the new baby was reported as a challenge.

Anxiety amongst parents was reported as high, with both of the above factors contributing negatively to that picture.

Many of the parents reported the most useful support to them was the connection and friendship with other parents going through something similar (for example peer support).

A workshop was delivered for the Family Hub leadership team and key stakeholders locally. The session was linked back to the legal requirements under the Childcare Act of creating a seamless pathway of services for families pre-birth to five in particular.

The session explored the commissioning cycle, and how the services utilise data to identify need, understand resource, and make decisions around whether or not to directly deliver a service, or in fact develop it. An understanding of developing parent lead services was discussed using a community development approach.

Two examples were shared which are written as separate case studies and available on the LGA Case Study page : Cornwall Accessible Activities Programme (CAAP) and Swindon SEND Community Connected were both developed from scratch by parent carers of children with SEND and are now both very successful projects operating independently from any public sector support.

Families report the benefits of parent led services are:

• friendships (and peer support from folks who know) 
• support when out and about
• advocacy
• information sharing
• new skills and experiences
• confidence 
• being part of influencing change.

The group were challenged to consider the following questions: 

1. What is your role in developing (not delivering) services? 
2. Who else is involved in developing services? 
3. Who else could be involved in developing services?
4. What services have you developed and how
5. What are the opportunities for developing more services?
6. How do we embed a community development approach?
7. How will we measure success?
8. What will we all do next?

An action plan was developed and monitored at the next workshop which considered reach and engagement strategies. 

Within the month progress had already been made:

• work was ongoing to create pathways and encourage parents to visit the family hubs
• two volunteers have been recruited to run stay and play sessions and the team are developing a volunteer policy
• work is happening with comms about social media and digital outreach
• plans are being developed to set up open coffee drop in sessions
• health Visitors are now meeting in the family hubs, and maternity liaison is also taking place there
• a Facebook page is now up and running and videos are being developed to share to support the notion of the hubs as a welcoming and familiar space
• the family hubs will also be parent proofed by the teens thinking about how it feels to find and go into a family hub for the first time
• digital poverty will be the next focus to ensure we are reaching families who may not be online.
• connections have been made with the parish council, community groups and local businesses to raise awareness and leave leaflets and posters to support digital poverty
• community events will also be attended over the summer
• a small group of parents are now running some sessions themselves using the sensory room. This promotes confidence and links them into a pathway of other groups
• the start For Life offer is almost signed off and videos are being developed for the family hubs
• a “fair treatment assessment” has taken place and will be updated later feeding into the parent proofing activity
• a multiagency event to celebrate the start for life offer will also take place
• “Group work” hi is a new part of the liquid logic system which will more easily support joint working across different agencies
• a two-way process of volunteers moving into employment and skills support, and vice versa has already been demonstrated. There is a greater level of involvement in stay and play which is also supporting parent confidence and pathways to volunteering and/or employment
• two drop-ins have been organised and a session on transitions.

One of the most successful outcomes of this work has been to proactively encourage parents who are keen to develop services themselves. As a result one new Mum is now running stay and play sessions in the local family hubs.

The Family Hub Management and stakeholder group was supported at a follow-up workshop to check progress, update on implementation and hold the group to account. This work will now be continued by the Family Hub lead.

There is a huge amount of experience in family hub teams of community development approaches. Often the work is happening almost accidentally. For example, some of the staff had offered a space for parents to continue to meet at the end of the parenting course. The approach in Solihull has been to deliberately plan for community development approaches where a small amount of resource can have a huge amount of impact.

Louise Hudson 
Email: [email protected] 

Elizabeth Hodgman LGA Programme Manager 
Email: [email protected]