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Dawn Primarolo, minister for Children, Young People and Families, today announced three new pilot projects to help up to five million mums, dads, carers and grandparents get important parenting information support and guidance.

 

The Parent Know How Innovation Fund has created the three pilot projects, as recent research showed that 80 per cent of parents reported they were ‘satisfied’ or ‘very satisfied’ with the information or support provided by existing Parent Know How services. These latest additions to these services will launch in January and will join a range of other telephone helpline and innovative services available to mums, dads, carers and grandparents to ensure that wherever they look for information, they receive coherent advice from respected sources.

 

Dawn Primarolo said:

 

“We are committed to finding innovative ways of getting information out to families including grandparents. Through Parent Know How, we fund a number of organisations to reach out to parents and carers and I am delighted that we are developing three new services. I am particularly pleased that we are supporting organisations that will provide online information for grandparents with childcare responsibilities.

 

“Parent Know How is about pulling together relevant information into one convenient place. Parents, carers and grandparents will now have access to advice and support where and when they need it to help them achieve the best for the children in their care.”

 

The Parent Know How Innovation Fund was designed to explore and expand the routes available to parents to access information, support and advice from parenting experts or from other parents. The three new pilots, which will run until March 2011, could reach almost 5 million people. They are:

 

beGrand.net - A new web-service to give grandparents a voice, support the development of grandparent communities, increase support for grandparents caring for children, increase contact between grandchildren and grandparents and improve grandparents' parenting skills.

 

Parenting On Demand - Aims to develop and syndicate online videos designed to support parents/carers of children aged 5-19. The service will create a range of short video clips which will provide information and advice on a range of topics including learning, behaviour and wellbeing. The videos will also refer to other sources and services.

Relate for Parents – A new relationship support service from Relate. It will aim to develop online media tools to cater for parents needs by providing advice, support, and guidance to enable them to understand and improve their family relationships, manage conflict and make change happen.

 

Editor's Notes
This press notice relates to 'England'

1. The research, Parent Know How Telephone Helplines and Innovation Strands Evaluation, can be found at: http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/research

 

2. The Parent Know How programme was launched in May 2008. It aims to help all parents - mothers, fathers, and others with caring responsibility - in England. It is designed to deliver better outcomes for children and parents by increasing the provision of national services available to provide information, support and advice and making the job of being a parent a little bit easier.

 

3. The programme brings together expert advice from a range of third and private sector partners. The services supported under the programme take support to parents when and where they want it and in a form that suits them. Parents can ring a telephone helpline or go online for personalised advice; they can join a social network to get support from others in similar circumstances; watch online videos for handy tips; or read articles in newspapers or magazines.

 

4. The projects announced today:
o Parenting On Demand a video service from Capablue, with Parenting UK, Brightcove and Tomorrow's Child;
o BeGrand.net - Grandparents Online service for grandparents from Opportunity Links, with the Grandparents Association and Digital Unite; and
o Relate for Parents A new relationship support service from Relate, working with BT and the Serious Games Institute.

 

Contact Details
Public Enquiries 0870 000 2288, info@dcsf.gsi.gov.uk