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Innovative social care team develop online library of helpful videos to support parents across the Vale

The Vale Parenting Service has been working with families to build on their strengths and make positive changes since 2018. 

 

  • Thursday, 19 November 2020

    Vale of Glamorgan



With a focus on promoting emotional wellbeing and supporting positive family relationships, the team works to help parents feel more confident in managing behaviour, routines and boundaries.  

 

The service consists of a small team of seven parenting practitioners, one specialist under-19’s midwife, an administrator, a senior practitioner and team manager. Their work had always been conducted face to face but COVID-19 made that impossible. Rather than put their work on hold the team began to think creatively around how they could continue to deliver a quality service to parents across the county.  

The team’s manager, Joanna Card, said: “The Vale Parenting Service is made up of three previous services that have merged to form one team. The team had worked really hard to establish a new way of helping parents and what we got going within 6 months was extraordinary.  

 

“We had pioneered the new under-19s midwife service and were starting to see a real difference being made. Then COVID-19 arrived.  

 

“The challenges brought by the pandemic are obvious and are the same being experienced by lots of organisations. Our team were determined not to let their work be affected.  

 

“They worked incredibly hard and flexibly to get an online service up and running. The parenting groups we used to offer face to face are now run virtually and there has been a really positive uptake of these.  

 

“No one liked the idea of recording themselves but we all knew it was the only way to give parents the support they needed. We offer live video presentations for a wide range of things and have pre-recorded sessions which have been shared with parents online.

 

“We are still offering one to one support and group support, we’re just doing it in a different way, and we have built a bank of resources for parents that will prove useful for years to come.”   

The team’s success had already attracted the attention of other local authorities who were keen to learn about how they worked and in October of this year the team was shortlisted in the prestigious Social Care Wales Accolade Awards.  

 

The Vale Parenting Service work in partnership with many other teams within the Vale of Glamorgan Council Social Services department, such as FACT, the Youth Wellbeing Service and Children’s Services.

 

Anyone can call the Families First Advice Line Families-First-Advice-Line.aspx. This is the first point of contact for parents, carers or professionals in the Vale looking for some advice, support, or to make a referral.

 

Families First Advice Line