The Parenting Fund

Aims of Lancashire Council of Mosques

We aim to overcome religious and cultural barriers to accessing support for parents and information about issues that affect the lives of their children or parents themselves.

Objectives of Lancashire Council of Mosques

Increase parents confidence and skills in supporting their children
Build more cohesive families
Enhance educational attainment
Raise awareness about issues relating to children
Raise awareness about issues relating to parents

Progress to date

1. What information can be accessed via the Parental Support project
Drug or Alcohol issues
Health concerns
Children’s issues
Living as a single parent
Support available to you as a parent for Parental issues

2. What the project has to offer
Home visits
One to one sessions
Access to services
Group work
Training & development
Advocacy

3. Why the project is needed
Breaking down cultural barriers. Community cohesion. Building bridges.
Raising awareness and understanding of parental issues within Blackburn with Darwen from a culturally sensitive background.
Raising awareness of parental issues from an Islamic perspective which the community will be more receptive and understanding towards.


4. Barriers to success – Father’s were difficult to engage due to work commitments and uncertainty of whether support will be sustainable.

5. Infrastructure development – The project worked with a number of third sector and statutory services. The project supported initiatives like the Eczema Support Group to setup and the Discover Mosques group towards improving community cohesion amongst parents from different backgrounds. Statutory agencies benefited through the project’s participation in the Common Assessment Framework and taking on referrals from Children Services.

6. Achievements – Our key achievements to date include the following:

Parental Support Directory – a combination of a CD-ROM and publication proved very successful with parents and local agencies
Positive Parenting Course – the development of this unique package is garnered great interest within the community
Basic IT Workshops – we have fifty year old Asian women who have never switched on a computer emailing us.
Partnership Events – our engagement with projects like Discover Mosques, etc, have created opportunities for parents to network and made the events the successes they were.

7. Examples/anecdotes - Can you please provide up to three examples, anecdotes or case studies that demonstrate the project’s impact

8. Stakeholder involvement - How did you involve stakeholders in the project and what has resulted from this? (e.g. links and contacts made, groups formed, interest and responses from community groups, other agencies, policy makers etc.)

9. Feedback – Through evaluation sheet and a comments diary for clients using services over a period of time.

10. Evaluation – We are working with Dr Cheryl Simmel-Binnings of Lancaster University, as a borough wide initiative to evaluate all of the Parenting Fund projects. A final draft is still pending.

11. Exit plan/Continuation -

We have received transitional funding from the Parenting Fund to continue the project at its original capacity. We are applying to DCFS for funds to carry similar work in other areas of Lancashire and are also hopeful that there will be a third round of Parenting Fund to build on the success of work carried out in Phases 1 and 2.

12. Key lessons –

We have learnt that trust is a key issue for people to access services. Active outreach is required to maintain a high visibility to foster this trust. Service providers must remain patient with client’s ad hoc accessing services. People services directly to parents need to be wary of parents developing a dependence on the service provider and organisations should work towards developing a policy around this.