Courses, groups, and workshops

Birth to 5 Guides

Caring for a baby NHS support

Telephone advisory line

Starting Well resources

Children aged 2 to 10 years

The Starting Well Partnership is offering FREE one-off sessions available to parents and carers.

The Starting Well Partnership offers an exciting array of parenting groups and workshops. All sessions are free to attend and run by trained staff and volunteers from the Starting Well Partnership.

If you would like to know more about any of the groups or courses or wish to register your interest please click on the link: Starting Well Partnership - workshops, courses, and groups.

Support for young people in Worcestershire

Whether you are struggling with confidence, bullying, health or your well being, there is lots of support available to people living in Worcestershire. Starting Well Partnership can offer support and guidance and help to access other services in your area. For more information please click the link: Starting Well Partnership - Support for young people

Family first from YSS 

The Families First service delivered in the Worcestershire area by YSS, is a pilot program aiming to support families who have a parent or partner in prison. The service provides one to one support and guidance in a safe space, to enable the whole family to cope with the demands of having a partner, and parent, in prison. YSS Families First provides expert support and guidance for families to navigate through the criminal justice system, including preparations for prison visits. The key workers also provide an one to one emotional and practical support both for the children to process the imprisonment and the family as a whole. The criteria for referral is for the family to be residing in Worcestershire and for the partner/parent to be imprisoned or about to be sentenced.

Childcare

Here you can search for childcare near you. This includes childcare that has spaces for 2, 3 and 4-year old funded children, as well as those that provide before and after school pick-ups and those that specifically cater for children with a disability or special educational need.

England | Childcare choices 

Providers information toolkits about childcare for parents.

Children's Centres

Children's Centres in Worcestershire are run by lots of different providers. Many of them are run by schools and early years settings (e.g. nurseries) providing childcare, antenatal and postnatal services and in some cases extra services, such as speech and language and family support, to meet the needs of families in their local area.

Is your child ready for school?

Starting school for the first time can be an exciting time but also very daunting for both the child and the parents. Here you will find some things that will help your child get ready to start school and make the most of their learning. 

Worcestershire school holiday, food and activities

Provides information about food, activities and support available to families and children from nursery and primary aged, through to older children and teenagers during the school holidays.

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Advice for new parents on infant crying, including support and techniques on how to comfort your baby, advice on how to cope and be able to relax as a parent with a new-born baby.

These links provide support, tips, and guidance for communicating with children who are deaf or hard of hearing:

• deaf awareness tips (PDF)
• learn British Sign Language
• British Sign webpage
• 100 basic signs in BSL (YouTube)
• BSL interpretation services in Worcestershire (PDF)

The National Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel has identified that non-accidental injuries to babies under 1 years old consist of 27% of serious incidents where a child has suffered serious harm or died. Abusive Head Trauma can occur if a baby is shaken and this carries a high risk of significant long-term problems, or even death.

These short videos have been developed to help raise awareness that:

• infant crying is normal
• comforting methods can help
• it’s ok to walk away
• never, ever shake a baby

Follow these links to access the videos:

• Home from Work (YouTube)
• Morning at Home (YouTube)

For more information about baby crying and resources for parents and professionals, visit ICON Cope.

A group for parents, carers, grandparents and all those caring for a baby from birth up until 6 months of age.

8 weekly sessions covering:

• baby Brain development
• how you and your baby are feeling
• your developing relationship with your baby
• ways to respond to baby's crying, developing healthy sleep patters and feeding relationship
• child development needs
• your thoughts around childcare

Booking is essential.

Find out more on the Starting Well website.

An 8 to 10 week group with sessions designed to give parents and carers the opportunity to meet new people who may be experiencing similar issues and develop their knowledge through peer support.

The programme will focus on the following topics:

• behavioural difficulties
• developmental and play needs
• parenting styles
• explore feelings
• ways to relax
• attachment
• understand brain development
• relationships

For more information or to book onto a course contact Tanya Japel on: 07977 599512 or email: tanya.japel@actionforchildren.org.uk.

Starting Well South Worcestershire can also be contacted on: 01905 520 032 Monday to Friday 8:30am to 4:00pm. 

All courses are FREE and can be booked by parents or carers themselves.

Talking about difficult topics

We've all been on the receiving end of a difficult conversation. But that doesn't make it any easier when you have to have one with your child.

You might need to have a conversation where you:

• have to break some bad news
• have to ask about something you're worried about
• ask about topics you find uncomfortable - like sex or drugs
• ask your child if they're worried or scared by something
• ask your child about a new behaviour

or anything else you feel will be difficult to bring up.

For advice and support please click on the link: Talking about difficult topics

The Solihull Approach - Understanding your teenager’s brain  

This FREE online workshop 'Understanding your teenagers brain' can help parents and carers who find themselves overwhelmed by recent changes in their teenagers behaviour.

This short online workshop is specifically designed to help understand more about how the teenager’s brain works. This in turn helps parents and carers to understand teenage behaviour better. Why they can be impulsive, need to sleep a lot, be emotional, rebellious, take risks, be disorganised or distracted. 

Parents in Worcestershire can access this course for FREE using the following link: Understanding your teenagers brain, access course and by using the access code: PARENTSROCK