Policy initiatives
The Nurturing Programme reflects many of the aims in government policy and initiatives for children and families. These include the provisions of the 2004 Children Act, the National Service Framework for Children, the public health white paper Choosing Health, and the Primary National Strategy for Attendance and Behaviour.
Family Links contributes to the implementation of these initiatives by working with many statutory organisations, and is particularly well placed to participate in the development of closer partnerships between the statutory and voluntary sectors through Children's Trusts and Extended Schools.
Family Links have laid out a preliminary assessment mapping the Nurturing Programme against National Occupational Standards for Work with Parents. You can download this assessment here.
The Nurturing Programme promotes emotional health in adults and in children. Everyone is born with emotional intelligence - it's a capacity wired into the brain. How this capacity develops is a person's emotional literacy, and this depends on the kind of relationships they have, initially with the adults caring for them. Emotional literacy leads to emotional health; emotional health helps us fulfil our potential in every aspect of our lives.
Policy documents with links to our work
NICE Guidance
The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) has recently recommended group-based parent training/education programmes in its guidance. This is good news for all of us in parent group work. On the NICE website, our Chief Executive Annette Mountford is quoted describing NP as an excellent preventive model: “Everybody needs to have good emotional health. This is not only for those who are struggling, it’s for those who are doing well too.”
Extended Schools Prospectus
Family Links and our work with the Pegasus School, a primary school in Blackbird Leys in Oxford, is used as a case study in the Extended schools: Access to opportunities and services for all. Please see page 16 of the prospectus for the full story.
Parenting Support Know How Booklet for Extended Schools
The Nurturing Programme is included in the Parenting Support Know How Booklet for Extended Schools, produced by the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DfCSF) as an evidence based structured parenting programme. Please see pages 7 and 14.
SEAL Guidance
Family Links is mentioned in the Excellence and Enjoyment: social and emotional aspects of learning guidance by the DfCSF. Please see pages 66 and 73.
Communities that Care
The Nurturing Programme is explained on pages 62-63 in the second edition of A guide to Promising Approaches by Communities that Care. You can order a copy from www.communitiesthatcare.org.uk/publications.html.
Sure Start
Family Links has been recommended in the Sure Start’s Children's Centre Practice Guidance. We are in section 6 on page 33.
The Nurturing Programme is also included in the following:
Sure Start: A guide to evidence-based practice
Sure Start Unit, 2002 (SSEBP3)
Intervening Early: A 'snapshot' of approaches primary schools can use to help children get the best from school
DfES/Coram Family 2002 (DfES/0131/2002)
Toolkit for Commissioners
Parenting UK, in partnership with the DfES, have produced a Toolkit for Single Commissioners of Parenting Support in local authorities and others in similar roles across England giving information and signposting for those commissioning services for parents at local level. Family Links is included in the toolkit. To find out more, please go to www.toolkit.parentinguk.org and search for "Family Links".
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