By Deborah Auty, Strategic Communications and Development Lead

A Better Start Southend (ABSS): The role of parent champions

At ABSS, we want Southend to be known as the best place in this country to bring up a child and be a parent. Our aim is to create a community that welcomes every baby and ensures they have the best start in life. By using new ways of thinking and working – co-production included – we are solving some of the problems that have affected local children and families for years.  Our Parent Champions are key to this co-production.

Southend Association of Voluntary Services (SAVS) train and manage the network of ABSS Parent Champions. Currently, we have 43 taking part in the programme (67 have been trained since the beginning). Parent Champions are passionate about the programme and dedicated to its outcomes.

There are many ways that Parent Champions can be part of the programme; SAVS ensures they are introduced to as many opportunities as possible and supported through their journey. Examples of their involvement include taking part in governance meetings, representing the programme at local and national conferences/workshops, supporting in recruiting new staff to the programme, designing and delivering activities to engage new families via the Engagement Fund, or leading on ad-hoc projects like the ABSS Conference.

What difference is it making for children and families, now and in the future?

The Parent Champion programme has become an asset to the Southend-on-Sea community, especially within the six wards it operates within. Many benefits are clear, for the parents who take part, and for the wider families we work with.

Increased engagement with services: ABSS has seen a positive increase in the number of parents engaging with and talking about it, and Parent Champions have been key to this as they reach out to families around them. Many Parent Champions started their own journey with ABSS by attending a group or activity and were helped greatly by this and wanted to share this experience with others.  Parent Champions also co-designed Pip, our cuddly mascot, and he is a huge success in engaging young children when we are running community engagement events. Pip has underlined the importance of working directly with parents; parent involvement from the outset helps to address important aspects that may be overlooked without their input.

New skills for Parent Champions: Working directly with volunteers is inspiring; each Parent Champion has their own unique background, story and personal achievements, and it’s a privilege to watch their journeys as they go through training and get involved. There is a priority to ensure personal development, both through experiences and training.  The Parent Champion Training focusses on building confidence, increasing knowledge of the ABSS programme and providing opportunities for parents to share their skills, lived experience and passions. Traditionally delivered physically, the training has been adapted to an online, three-week e-learning course accompanied by virtual support sessions. These new skills and experiences will be transferable to any new opportunities taken up by Parent Champions outside of A Better Start. SAVS also continually celebrates and supports the Parent Champions with 1:1 support meetings and thank you events held throughout the year.

One parent said that being a Parent Champion improved her communication and confidence skills; she loved being involved in the conversations and was proud that she had found her voice: “…being a Parent Champion gave me the confidence to speak out when needed and to strive to achieve what is best for me and my community.’ Another parent said: “…the Parent Champion role encouraged and supported my confidence building skills and I firmly believe that a confident parent equals confident children.”

Fostering community ownership of services: Parent Champions lead an engagement fund to run community engagement events and activities to bring new parents into the programme and ensure they are representing all parents.  As one Parent Champion said: “without engagement with the people you are trying to reach, you will never truly understand what connections can be made and the benefits of it.”

Many of our services begin life as ideas at parent forums, where parents share their thoughts on the services available in their communities, and how ABSS could bridge the gap between parents and projects. These include Umbilical Chords, a music project hosted by Southend YMCA for children and families, and Microgreens, which will provide starter kits for new parents who want to grow and harvest vegetables at home.

Driving the strategic direction for A Better Start Southend: The success of parent co-production in developing and delivering new and existing services designed by and for them builds on the tremendously positive experience we have had with parents’ involvement in governance.  ABSS has always included parent champions as equal members on its key committees, and most recently, as members of our Finance and Risk group.  Indeed, no governance meeting is considered quorate unless at least two parents are attending. Using the power, creativity and lived experience of parents and communities in our work, we have gone deeper than co-production and advocacy to seeing parents as partners in setting the strategic direction and governance of all aspects of our organisation and work.

How is the programme influencing systems change?

Influencing others to co-produce services with parents and communities:  We are setting an example for others around us.  In a February meeting of the Southend Health and Wellbeing Board, members heard presentations from Parent Champions about their role in developing new services through co-production.  Many present were inspired to consider the co-production and parent champion model as one that should be adopted as part of an integrated approach to service commissioning.

As one member of the Board remarked, ‘We need to provide more welcoming situations to harness the power and testimony of the community. We’ve got a way to go, but we’re moving in the right direction.’

A Better Start Southend co-funds a co-production champion with Southend Borough Council. She provides support at a strategic level to organisations across Southend to embed co-production.  We are also leading work to explore how workforce development across all the early years providers and other partners can reflect a commitment to systems change and co-production values.

Helping people to use their power to create their own future in this way may turn out to be our programme’s most important legacy.

Key learning for systems change:

Partnering parents lived experience with the learned experience of practitioners makes for better services.  But honest co-production takes time, and this can be challenging when seeking to deliver a new service at speed.

Jeff Banks, Director of A Better Start Southend, says:

‘By having the parent voice on our decision-making committees, we are kept accountable for delivering on our promise that services are developed following the principles of co-production. They also provide a forum in which senior public health officials can hear first-hand about the challenges that people and communities are facing.’

For more information on the A Better Start Southend programme, please contact deborah.auty@eyalliance.org.uk