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| Path: Home > Conferences > Archive > Jul 07 > parents and family learning |
Implementing policy at a local level: working with parents and family learning
Best practice seminar
| Date: | Thursday 19 July 2007 |
| Venue: | Banqueting Suite, Birmingham City Council House, Victoria Square, Birmingham B1 1BB |
| Ref: | C15-54/07/07 |
| Fee*: | £80 (includes lunch, tea/coffee) |
[Background] [Aims] [Audience] [Programme]
Background
Policy initiatives and changes in the area of working with parents and family learning are extremely fast flowing. Colleagues across the country are striving to implement the change agenda.
NIACE and Parenting UK are delighted to jointly present this best practice seminar. It has developed from NIACE’s research for the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) on the exploratory links between family learning and parenting in local authority settings. This is summarised in The links between family learning and parenting programmes: a discussion document for local authorities (NIACE, 2007) - [PDF]. Parenting UK are a lead partner in the National Academy for Parenting Professionals (NAPP) and have been advisors, alongside the DfES and the Learning and Skills Council, to the research.
The research identified the challenges for local authorities in linking family learning and parent programmes whilst implementing the new policy agendas. These challenges include:
 | developing a coherent strategic approach |
| using language and terminology in a multi-agency setting |
| ensuring effective partnership working |
| overcoming barriers of the structural locations of services |
| ensuring Local Area Agreements support this area |
| capturing and using existing quality improvement expertise in the move towards commissioning |
| using multiple funding streams to meet local needs |
| keeping a balanced and broad curriculum offer |
| supporting families as learners to progress onto other opportunities and to be able access information. |
As one colleague stated in the research:
"We want recognition of the huge job we’ve got to make sense of and implement the new policy agenda. It takes time.”
In the discussion document, NIACE and Parenting UK have highlighted the areas for local debate and identified some imaginative responses to providing coherent services. For example:
Portsmouth
Family Learning features in all four blocks of Portsmouth’s Local Area
Agreement (LAA) and a target has been set for parenting courses. These have
Implementing policy at a local level 2 enabled the Adult and Family Learning
Service to provide expertise to improve the quality of data available through
their Management Information System and the quality of provision and begin to
measure impact through their learner post-course postcard tracking system.
Essex
In Essex, the Family Learning and Parenting Support Group has started
work on developing an overarching quality framework. The group has taken the
range of quality frameworks needed for the provision that falls under its remit
such as the Common Inspection Framework, Building Blocks of Quality, Inspiring
Learning for All, National Standards for Childcare and Early Years and mapped
these against the five Every Child Matters Outcomes
_______________________________
Aims
This best practice seminar aims to:
| Support local authorities to develop their strategic approaches across the field of working with parents and family learning |
| Enable participants to update their knowledge on key areas, share best practice, discuss issues and reflect on their own progress. |
Participants will be able to consider approaches in specific areas including:
| developing strategic frameworks |
| workforce development |
| Local Area Agreements |
| involving parents |
| quality frameworks |
| capturing progression |
| developing a new vision for learning to meet the new agendas. |
_______________________________
Audience
The event will be of particular interest to:
| Senior local authority managers and expert practitioners in Children and Young People’s Services, Adult and Community Services |
| Councillors |
| Policy makers |
| Senior managers from Health |
| Staff from Learning and Skills Councils |
| Staff from Government Offices |
| Senior managers from voluntary sector. |
_______________________________
Programme
| 9:45 | Arrival and registration (tea/coffee available) |
| 10:20 | Welcome and introduction to the
day Chair: Penny Lamb, Development Officer - Family Learning, NIACE |
| 10:30 | Developing a strategic
approach: the Suffolk experience Viki Muller, Suffolk County Council |
| 10:50 | Supporting the work of the
Parenting Commissioners Mary Crowley, Chief Executive, Parenting UK |
| 11:10 | Questions and discussion |
| 11:20 | Tea/coffee break |
| 11:35 | Discussion groups
1) Developing joint working 2) Ensuring quality: joining the frameworks 3) Involving Parents in developing and implementing
strategies 4) Workforce reform: the qualification frameworks
(*morning only) 5) Capturing and measuring children’s progress 6) Multi-agency working: speaking the same language? 7) Creating new approaches to learning for the new agendas 8) Setting high level targets for a whole family approach |
| 12:40 | Lunch |
| 13:40 | Making Local Area Agreements
work Romy Warren, Portsmouth Council |
| 14:10 | Questions and discussion |
| 14:20 | Discussion groups
1) Developing joint working 2) Ensuring quality: joining the frameworks 3) Involving Parents in developing and implementing
strategies 5) Capturing and measuring children’s progress 4) * morning only 6) Multi-agency working: speaking the same language? 7) Creating new approaches to learning for the new agendas 8) Setting high level targets for a whole family approach |
| 15:20 | Taking the recommendations
forward John Gibson, DfES, Access and Inclusion Team |
| 15:30 | Close of seminar (tea/coffee available) |
This programme is correct at the time of going to press. The organisers reserve the right to make changes to the published programme in the event of one or more of the advertised speakers being unable to attend. Delegates will have no claim against NIACE in respect of such changes.
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Also in July 2007...
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