Key Principles: Whole-system culture
Key principles help to ensure that accessible, acceptable interventions for parent carers of disabled children and young people, and those with Special Educational Needs, can be effectively designed and implemented. They are drawn from quantitative and qualitative research, evaluations of implementation, and from common features of effective parenting interventions.
What?
- Parent carers often find that the parenting support available to them does not fully meet the specific needs of their child or their family context
- They value support that is tailored to the age, stage of development, and nature of their child’s disability
- Involving parent carers in choosing the type of support, alongside professionals, helps them feel more empowered and actively engaged in the process
- Parents tend to prefer group-based parenting programmes.
Why?
- Tailored support helps parent carers feel understood, respected, and more likely to engage meaningfully with services
- Support that aligns with a child’s needs and parental preferences contributes to improved outcomes for both child and family
- Peer groups can offer both practical advice and emotional support, reducing isolation and building community resilience
- However, if group dynamics are poorly managed by practitioners or experiences are not shared by parent carers, parent carers can report dissatisfaction with support.
Translate this into practice by:
- Designing a diverse and inclusive parenting offer that reflects the varied needs, preferences, and circumstances of disabled children and their families, co-developed with parent carers and supported by a skilled workforce
- Match support to individual needs by using assessment skills and local knowledge to guide parent carers towards tailored, accessible, and strengths-based interventions.
What?
- Parent carers frequently interact with multiple professionals across sectors including education, health, and social care
- When support is fragmented, this can lead parent carers to experience confusion, conflicting advice, or feelings of being overwhelmed
- A joined-up approach that includes formal services and informal supports around the family is essential.
Why?
- Coordinated and consistent support helps parent carers feel that services are working together
- When practitioners align their messages and work collaboratively, parents feel as part of a ‘team’ with professionals
- Roles such as the Designated Social Care Officer and the Family Help Lead practitioner role could support service integration across the parenting support offer.
Translate this into practice by:
- Promoting a joined-up, multi-agency approach by aligning parenting support with therapeutic and educational services, ensuring consistent messaging across Health, Education, Social Care, and the voluntary sector.
- Strengthening collaboration across teams by supporting practitioners to build relationships with education settings and involve the child’s wider caregiving network in a coordinated and integrated way.
What?
- Parent carers can sometimes feel judged or scrutinised when accessing parenting support
- They value practitioners who are non-judgmental, encouraging, and supportive.
- They want practitioners to persevere in building relationships with their family, through enduring and consistent engagement throughout their child’s life
- Some parents feel that support adds pressure to their already complex lives and appreciate additional help and reassurance to apply what they learn.
Why?
- Supportive, non-judgemental practice increases confidence, encourages persistence, and fosters better relationships
- Embedding follow-up and ongoing wraparound support if needed ensures that changes in parenting practice can be sustained and integrated.
Translate this into practice by:
- Making support welcoming and non-judgemental by recognising parents as the experts on their own families and active partners in their support
- Acknowledging that families accessing parenting support may do so because of the additional challenges they face relating to their child/young person’s disability and additional needs, and not necessarily due to safeguarding concerns
- Building workforce confidence by training practitioners in relationship-based practice and support them to work in partnership with parent carers that affirms parental strengths and abilities.
