Parenting
Parenting support is a priority for many services and
organisations across Kensington and Chelsea, both statutory and
voluntary. To ensure this support is being developed and delivered
in the best possible ways, key people from across these agencies
have come together to form the Kensington and Chelsea - Parenting
Strategy Steering Group. You can view more about this and
download the Parenting Strategy 2008-2011
by visiting the Parenting Strategy page.
There are a wide range of Parenting support
services to assist parents bringing up their children. These
include:
- parenting programmes designed to help parents
increase their understanding and confidence in parenting
- Enjoy and Achieve free
training sessions for parents that cover many other subjects e.g.
first aid, childcare and confidence-building and ICT
- support and information
regarding family health issues and disability and the services
around the borough that caters for them
- services that offer support
and advice for parents (as well as their children), about
children's behaviour, mental and emotional wellbeing. These
services are commonly referred to as part of the Child Adolescent Mental Health Service
(CAMHS).
- Family Voices, Family Choices.
A parents forum, establishing a support network of parents,
that contribute to the local community and services.
Parenting courses
Below you can find two links to free parenting training from
hospitality courses to admin courses. The
leaflet includes other activities such as drop-in groups
and the courses are marked with a 'c' next
to them. You can book
your parenting training online.
Details of the courses available:
Parenting programmes
Parenting programmes help mums, dads, carers and other adults in
parenting roles to build positive relationships with their
children. There are various FREE parenting programmes available at
different venues across the borough where parents can meet other
parents, share their experiences and learn useful coping
strategies. A range of programmes are offered each term to
meet different needs and cover children of different age-groups as
well as parents for whom English is an additional language.
Parents can register for a Parenting Programme by downloading a
registration form online (see below) and sending it to the
Parenting Team at Kensington Town Hall. Please note that it is not
usually possible to join a course once it has already begun, as the
length of each course varies from 8 – 13 weeks. These courses
are only available for residents of the Royal Borough of Kensington
and Chelsea or for parents whose child attends school in the
borough.
To find out more:
Online support
There are lots of websites where you can speak to other parents,
exchanging ideas, tips and advice. These networks have been built
by parents for parents and contain a wide range of information.
Please note that the Royal Borough of Kensington and
Chelsea Council is not responsible for content of external
websites.
Netmums is a family of local sites
that cover the UK, each site offering information to mothers on
everything from where to find playgroups and how to eat healthily
to where to meet other mothers.
The local sites are backed by a wealth of parenting articles
that start with pregnancy and follow through each stage of
childhood helping mums to enjoy a happy and healthy family
life.
Mumsnet was conceived in early
2000 out of disastrous family holiday. The idea was to create
a website where parents could swap advice about holidays,
pushchairs and last night's TV.
Eleven years later and who'd have thought it would come to
this? The site gets nearly four million visits per month.
Our aim is to: Make parents' lives easier by pooling knowledge,
advice and support. We try, as far as possible to let the
conversation flow and not to over-moderate. Mumsnet is a site for
grown-ups.