Testimonial

Celia Suppiah has been well known to me and to my colleagues for some five years now. She has been involved, virtually since the start, in our national health literacy programme Skilled for Health, a joint programme with DIUS and the national health and education charity ContinYou.

 

In Thurrock, working with the local community mothers group she was a pioneer for this community based learning intervention and as such she and her colleagues in this locality, through their testing of the concept have made a significant contribution to its success and growth from a series of modest local pilots to a national programme featured in DH White Papers and other major policy publications. I have no doubt she has the skills, professional knowledge and understanding of, and commitment to, community based interventions to make a success of her social enterprise.

Mike Horah
Head of Social Marketing and Health Related Behaviour Department of Health

National Network

From 2005 to 2007 ten Community Parent Programmes operating across the UK participated in a national research study: 'A Collective Evaluation of Community Parent Programmes'. The participating programmes identified a need for a national organisation to carry out a number of functions which are summarised below. Parents 1st social enterprise was set-up to take this agenda forward.


Programme coordinators meet at different venues across the country on a regular basis to share experiences, support each other and overcome isolated practice.

The aim of the network is to:

  • Be a national advocate and strategic ‘voice’ for the Community Parent model
  • Publicise and raise awareness of the value of Community Parent Programmes (CPPs)
  • Promote ways of enabling local programmes to be sustainable
  • Enable CPP coordinators, volunteers and employees to support and learn from each other
  • Respond to the needs of local CPPs and promote their autonomy
  • Provide learning networks and explore solutions to common difficulties
  • Overcome isolated practice
  • Identify best practice and develop the quality standards / core model
  • Develop and disseminate a joint evaluation / research strategy
  • Provide a national accreditation centre to enable volunteers to gain a national qualification
  • Develop training programmes and a transferable joint accreditation package
  • Support national conferences, courses and workshops for CPPs and stakeholders
  • Develop resources and publications across CPPs
  • Disseminate resources and publications to benefit all CPPs
  • Provide training courses, workshops and consultancy to support the development of new CPPs
  • Support the development of national partnership projects.