DEPARTMENT FOR
EDUCATION AND SKILLS News Release (2007/0068) issued by The
Government News Network on 25 April 2007
A consortium of
leading charities and a top London university have won a £30m
grant to provide a new academy for parenting practitioners,
following an announcement by Children's Minister Beverley
Hughes today.
The new National Academy for Parenting Practitioners (NAPP) will
be provided by the Family and Parenting Institute, Parenting UK
and Kings College London and will launch in October 2007. It will
be a centre of excellence, providing training for those who
support parents in the community and research on what methods work
to support parents.
The academy will train practitioners working with parents in
schools, health services, children's services and beyond and
support innovation and knowledge sharing.
Minister for Children, Young People and Families Beverley Hughes
said: "Parents increasingly seek help with bringing up their
children and we want to be as supportive as we possibly can. The
role a parent plays is integral to a child's development and
their future life chances, which is why we want to help parents
get it right.
"This academy will be an international and national hub for
the exchange of ideas and learning, providing the very latest
research and training in supporting parents. It will ensure that
our parenting practitioners can access the best possible
information and help parents do the best they possibly can for
their children."
Mary MacLeod, Chief Executive, Family and Parenting Institute,
from the winning consortium, said: 'This is the next step in
offering parents the right help at the right time as they raise
their children. Since FPI launched in 1999, parents have told us
they want tailored advice based on evidence and research when they
face challenges in raising their children. So we are delighted to
be working with King's and Parenting UK to make sure the
Academy will do the best job possible to inform and train those
who work with parents'.
Dr Stephen Scott, Head of the King's College London
Parenting Unit, commented: 'King's is delighted to be
hosting the Academy. It will bring its expertise in training
practitioners in approaches proven to work in helping all parents
bring the best out of their children. It will also carry out an
ambitious top quality research programme to find out the best ways
to help children and young people achieve their potential. This
should help to raise further the standard of parenting support'.
Mary Crowley MBE Chief Executive, Parenting UK, said: 'The
Academy will take a major step forward in ensuring that those who
work with parents are trained for that purpose and meet National
Occupational Standards. The Academy will help them access
appropriate training and advice. They will be able to provide the
kind of sensitive responsive help parents need to support them in
the rewarding but demanding job of bringing up children. England
is leading the world in creating this exciting national centre'.
The National Academy for Parenting Practitioners will improve the
quality of services for parents by raising the standard and
consistency of practice and disseminating the evidence from research.
The Department for Education and Skills want to improve support
for parents and outcomes for children by ensuring that all
parents are aware of and can access high quality, evidence based
parenting support delivered by qualified practitioners, when and
if they need it.
The NAPP will immediately begin to work towards:
* training, developing and supporting the parenting workforce,
especially - but not exclusively - the trainers of practitioners
and those who train trainers.
* acting as a national centre and source of advice on high
quality academic research evidence on parenting and parenting
support, combined with practical knowledge of what works and has
worked in different situations and with different groups of people.
* supporting the government's objective to improve support
for parents across the board. .
For further details, please visit the NAPP website: http://www.everychildmatters.gov.uk/napp/
NOTES TO EDITORS
1. The establishment of a National Parenting Academy is a
delivery commitment in the Respect Action Plan published in
January 2006. For further information go to http://www.respect.gov.uk or
contact Rachel Yeomans in the Home Office press office on 0207 035 3812.
2. Parents and parenting have a profound impact on
children's outcomes. Children tend to do well when parents
have good relationships with them, have expectations of their
behaviour, set boundaries and help them develop their own capacity
to regulate their behaviour, have aspirations for them, believe in
their ability to succeed and show it. Conversely, children's
development can be held back and inhibited when parents are unable
to offer their children these strong foundations, leading to
disrespectful, antisocial behaviour, poor educational attainment
and social exclusion.
3. The NAPP will transform the service landscape so that parents
across the country, including the hardest to help and those who
have been excluded, can get the quality services that will enable
them to improve the home environment for their children based on
interventions proven to be effective so improving their health,
development and life chances.
4. The NAPP consortium is:
Family and Parenting Institute: ESRC accredited research;
nationally and internationally respected policy development;
leading facilitator of social innovation partnerships; and leading
organisation in the UK for knowledge transfer in the field of
parenting and family policy.
King's College London's contribution to the consortium
is focused on the world-renowned work of Dr Stephen Scott of the
Institute of Psychiatry, as well as other strengths across the
college including the Centre for Crime and Justice studies,
Institute of Learning and Teaching and the UK's leading
training institution in evidence-based parenting approaches.
King's College London is England's fourth-oldest
university institution and is world renowned for excellence in
both research and teaching.
PUK: well-established umbrella body for breadth of parenting
workforce; developed National Occupational Standards for Work with
Parents; developed accredited training for practitioners and
trainers; existing presence in nine Government regions
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