Parents are our first and most enduring educators, for good or ill.

Every child deserves to grow up in a secure, loving and learning family.

If we can help to make this happen, everyone will flourish.

Titus Alexander has a key role in family learning and parenting support in the UK as a founding member of Parenting UK, author of the influential Family Learning: foundation of effective education (Demos, 1997) and contributor to the government’s Every Parent Matters strategy.

Since 1975 he has worked with local communities, learning about the difficulties of getting childcare and family support. In the early 1980’s he helped set up Working for Children in Wandsworth, a local network which organised mutual support, projects and campaigns. In the early 1990’s he set up a Parent Education Forum in the London Borough of Waltham Forest and launched the Parents’ Amendment to successive Conservative Education Bills in Parliament, as a campaign to “support parents as a child’s first and most enduring educator.” He continues to develop practical policies, learning programmes and campaigns to support parents and families at the heart of education.

 

Titus with 2-year old Orlando, his mother and nieces, Summer 2006

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Family Learning Strategy

Parenting Support , Social  Cohesion, Raising Attainment and  Social Justice

Parents are the greatest influence on their children’s well-being, educational attainment and life chances. How parents treat their children is more important than family income, social background, ethnic origin or school, although these also matter. Many studies show that low attainment, mental illness, substance abuse, crime and violence often have origins in early childhood experiences within the family.

What is family learning?

Family learning is learning which takes place among family members. The term is also used for all forms of support for families as places of learning.

• The distinctive feature of family learning is intergenerational learning linked with kinship, including:    parents/carers learning together with children;
• parents/carers learning separately in order to engage in learning with children or other family members;
• learning about family matters to enhance life and learning at home;
• children learning separately in order to share in learning with other family members.

A family is understood to be any intergenerational relationship based on kinship or parental responsibility, including foster parents, grandparents and carers.

Vision and values

The vision for family learning is that:

• Every child grows up with love, understanding and security, able to play, learn and develop their full potential as a valued member of society without poverty, fear or discrimination;
• All parents, carers and adults responsible for children get the opportunities, support, encouragement, education and facilities to address their own learning needs and to support their children’s learning;
• All adults and agencies work together to this end.

Family learning is underpinned by values of respect, fairness, equality, humility, creativity, empathy, self-awareness, caring, love and joy.

Support for family learning shall be informed by the Rights of the Child. This means that we:

• Respect each person’s name, nationality, identity, culture, language and privacy;
• Uphold freedom of expression, thought, religion and assembly;
• Provide accessible information for social, spiritual, physical and moral well-being;
• Ensure dignity and self-reliance for all children, including those with learning or physical disability;
• Enable children to play, learn and be creative;
• Protect children from all forms of physical or mental abuse, economic or sexual exploitation, discrimination, drugs and violence;
• Maintain personal relations with both parents, except where it is against the child’s interests;
• Treat every child fairly.

All adults share responsibility to secure these rights for children.

Support for family learning

The most important agencies for supporting family learning are, in priority order:

1. parents and families themselves, in all their diversity;
2. employers, whose willingness to enable parents to spend time with their families makes all the difference;
3. Television has a powerful influence on families and learning at home;
4. community and voluntary associations, who create informal and formal networks of support;
5. local services of all kinds, particularly Sure Start, primary health care trusts and schools.

Local and national government have a key role in providing support and rules for these agencies to flourish.

Many different agencies are involved in providing support for family learning, which includes formal and informal provision for:

1. parenting and relationship education;
2. language, literacy, numeracy, information technology or other subjects for family members;
3. home-school support: help for parents supporting their children’s learning at school, including schemes for reading, maths, science or other subjects;
4. family health: learning about nutrition, fitness, substance abuse or any aspect of health in a family context or for family members learning together;
5. family well-being: personal development programmes for family members or about family issues;
6. family issues: education for family members dealing with critical issues in family life, such as mental illness, disability, special needs, behavioural difficulties, or caring for a sick or elderly relative, etc.;
7. education for family members aimed at crime prevention or conflict resolution;
8. learning for leisure and recreation, including the arts, sports and outdoor pursuits;
9. family economics, including consumer education, financial literacy and family enterprise;
10. family professions: using parenting/family knowledge and skills to gain qualifications for linked careers in childcare, nursing, teaching, social work or care for the elderly;
11. family information: learning about services for families, such as education, health, leisure, welfare and the criminal justice system, and how to use them;
12. family citizenship: learning how to take part in running and setting policy for services as citizens. 

Most family learning provision addresses more than one of these strands at the same time, depending on the needs of learners. Different strands therefore require specialist skills about a subject area or issue as well as generic skills and knowledge of working with families, in all their diversity.

Targeting needs through universal provision

Targeting provision at priority needs takes tact. People experiencing difficulty in any area of their life need to feel safe and valued in order to deal with it effectively. They also need to recognise that they are not alone. All parents and carers should have easy access to:

1. information, advice and guidance on where to get help and support as a parent;
2. support on how to help children learn;
3. parenting and relationship education.

These services aim to develop parents’ ability to help themselves. The first two can be provided by schools, libraries and community centres and should be free of charge. The third may be charged according to ability to pay.

Priorities for funding

Public funding for family learning should support activities, educational programmes or encounters that are:

• Purposeful: aimed at realising the vision and values for family learning set out above;
• Planned: thought-through and organised to meet these aims;
• Progressive: encourage learners to continue learning and personal development;
• Empowering: enables learners to develop their own power and effectiveness,

and which meet priority needs as set out below.

The priority is to support family learning where there are the greatest needs, which means:

1. Parents experiencing difficulties with literacy or numeracy, or with few educational qualifications;
2. Children who are achieving less than their potential at nursery or school or in other areas of life;
3. Families in difficulty, over relationships, children’s behaviour, health, debt or other aspects of their lives;
4. Families where there are risks of abuse, violence, anti-social or criminal behaviour;
5. Families experiencing multiple deprivation;
6. Low income families;
7. Families who want to contribute to family life in the community but lack the means;
8. Families who need support to maintain their culture and language of origin.

Organisation of support for family learning

Support for family learning in some form is provided by almost every agency that works with children and families, although it may not always be called family learning.

Consultation with practitioners in London West identified the following priorities for action at a local level:

1. Working together: coordination, interagency partnership and strategic planning;
2. Improving Practice: staff development and support;
3. Securing funds: long-term, coherent and transparent funding;
4. Informing parents: publicity, promotion, information and communication;
5. Responding to needs: flexible local, responsive provision;
6. Engaging and empowering parents.

Policy connections

Support for family learning has a key role in achieving national objectives for children, schools, neighbourhood renewal, social cohesion, poverty reduction, citizenship, crime reduction, health, culture, libraries and many other areas.  If parents and children have effective support and opportunities to address issues in their own lives, and if barriers removed, they will transform society from the bottom up.

Clients and partners

Titus Alexander has advised national and local government, schools, museums, galleries and political parties on work with parents, contributing to conferences, training, strategies and policies, including:

• BBC: advised on content and structure for its first parents’ website, and answers to Frequently Asked Questions;
• Cambridge Education Associates (CEA): Training for teachers in work with parents and on self-esteem, extending education, supplementary education and homework clubs;
• Family & Parenting Institute: developed Parent Information Point toolkit (2004), feasibility study (2005), workshop materials and trainer of trainers programme, now being rolled out to all schools;
• Learning & Skills Council: strategies for supporting family learning;
• Local Education Authorities: training and consultancy (Enfield, Cambridgeshire, Devon, Barking, Barnet, Bexley, Birmingham, Hackney, Kensington & Chelsea; Lewisham, Sheffield, South Essex, Sunderland, Tower Hamlets, Waltham Forest, among others, including Scotland and Wales);
• Museums association key note talks;
• NIACE: Adviser on family learning, citizenship and membership development; Expert assessor for Adult and Community Learning Fund proposals; research report on relationships with members; Guide to Good Practice in Family Learning; produced Adult Learners’ Week press pack for two years;
• Parenting UK: founder member, conference speaker/facilitator, author;
• Pre-School Learning Alliance: I wrote a successful bid for a £2.8m Millennium Award scheme and brought together an interagency group to see it through, and then trained staff and Award winners;
• Victoria & Albert Museum strategy on family learning.

Publications

Other publications by Titus Alexander on work with families include:

• Riches Beyond Price: Making the Most of Family Learning (NIACE, 1995, with Peter Clyne);
• Home-school Policies: A practical guide (1995), with Emma Beresford and John Bastiani;
• The Self-Esteem Directory (1997);
• Empowering Parents (PESF/NCB, 1997);
• Parent Information Project (PIP): Next Steps (2005), with Rebecca Goldman: Parent Information Point: next steps is essential reading for all practitioners, managers and directors with responsibility for working with parents, children, young people and families. It will be of particular interest to those involved in implementing the Every Child Matters agenda through services working together with schools, extended schools, children's trusts and children's centres;
• The PIP Toolkit (FPI, 2003).

His Supporting Parents Starting School (FPI 2007) programme is being used to train facilitators to run workshops for parents in primary and secondary schools in England.

Further reading

There is a lot of research and good writing about parenting, families and the early years in particular. The following are well worth reading:

Alfie Kohn, Unconditional Parenting, Atria Books, NY, 2005

Sue Gerhardt, Why Love Matters: How affection shapes a baby’s brain, Brunner-Routledge, 2004

Oliver James, They F*** You Up: How to survive family life, Bloomsbury, 2007

Sue Palmer, Toxic Childhood: How the modern world is damaging our children and what we can do about it, Orion Books 2006

Policy-focused Research

Charles Desforges, The Impact Of Parental Involvement, Parental Support and Family Education On Pupil Achievement and Adjustment, DfES Research Report, R433 (2003)

Leon Feinstein; Kathryn Duckworth; Ricardo Sabates, Education and the Family: Passing Success Across the Generations, Taylor & Francis, 2007, ISBN: 9780415396370

Feinstein, L. & Symons, J. (1999). Attainment in secondary school. Oxford Economic Papers, 51, 300-321

Leon Feinstein, How early can we predict future educational achievement? Centre Piece, 2003 – a summary of findings with graphs and tables

James J. Heckman and Dimitriy V. Masterov, The Productivity Argument for Investing in Young Children, 2007 This paper and appendix shows that investing in disadvantaged young children has a much higher rate of return than investment in job training and has no equity-efficiency trade off.

Social Exclusion Unit, Breaking the Cycle: Taking stock of progress and priorities for the future, Office of Deputy Prime Minister (Code: 04SEU02456), Sept 2004

Utting, D, Bright, J, & Henricson, C, Crime and the Family, Family Policy Studies Centre, 1993

Connections

Family Learning Network
Family and Parenting Institute
Parenting UK
PERN
Pre-School Learning Alliance
WAVE
ContinYOU/TESSS, SHARE, & Parent Aid
Contact A Family, Paul Soames, Jill Harrison, Director of External Affairs
Home School Support,
IDeA, Jessica O’Brien,
London Challenge,
Learning & Skills Council, [Planning & Policy Development (Family Learning)]
NAFIS: Family Information Services,
National Pyramid Trust,
NCPTA, 
One Plus One
Parentline Plus
PEEP,
Sure Start,   
TEN
Trust for the Study of Adolescence

Take action

Everyone can make a difference to the lives of children and parents.
[more to come / link with campaigning ]