Worcestershire County Council's Parent Matter team will be speaking at a seminar at the House of Commons on September 4.

The team is likely to be talking to top level civil servants about the delivery of parenting courses in Worcestershire and in particular Triple P, a specific parenting programme that has been proven to improve family life.

Triple P offers parents the opportunity to come together, share their experiences and receive knowledge, skills and advice to help promote more effective parenting.

The event has been arranged at the request of Graham Allen, known nationally for his work in early intervention.

The Early Intervention Foundation has invited representatives from Worcestershire to speak and share their views from a local authority perspective and their experience of extensive, strategic use of Triple P, its practical implementation on the ground and to disseminate the realities, challenges and its successes.

Triple P's success has grown throughout the county with a variety of programmes being offered to parents at their point of need. As the programme has grown more parents have shown significant improvements due to increased confidence, peer support and having new positive strategies to use.

Feedback from them has included:

  • “It has really helped me and my family, by myself becoming more aware of lots of different situations”.
  • "On the whole we know how we should deal with difficult situations, however it is so easy to slip into bad habits. By talking through these things again it helps to reassess where we have slipped and gives you a renewed enthusiasm to get more things right (or attempt to) in the future"

The council's on-going challenge is to remove the stigma around parenting programmes.

Some parents feel you only need to attend a programme if you have a "problem". The council wants parenting to be for everyone and by offering support early it will help parents develop the skills and confidence they need to positively deal with the challenges of parenting if and when they come along.

As part of the Early Help Strategy Triple P Parenting Programme training is being offered to all first and primary schools, so that school staff can offer programmes to parents of reception class and year one pupils. Triple P provides a wide variety of courses to meet parents' and carers' specific needs.

In Worcestershire, the council is developing a 'menu' of all parenting programmes available in the county and is planning to introduce web-based support and issue-specific sessions for lower-level support.

'Parents Matter' coordinates and provides many of the parenting programmes in Worcestershire.

CoucnillorLiz Eyre, the county's cabinet member for children and families said: "Being invited to speak at the House of Commons to this audience is a great accolade for Worcestershire and a chance to share our good practice with colleagues from other local authorities.

We want everyone to feel they can be successful parents and by offering support early we can help those who need more confidence and can help them develop the skills to deal with the parenting challenges that come along."