| Child Protection Training for African Parents in England Project |
Project Location: Currently the Boroughs of Hackney, Haringey, Southwark and Islington Project Funders: Big Lottery Fund (ongoing), Awards for All (ended september 2011), The Department for Education (ended 31 March 2011)
"The Work AFRUCA is doing is having a resounding impact on many of the beneficiaries” (Child Protection Training for African Parents in London project: Mid Term Independent Evaluation Report April 2011)
Project Background Currently in its final year, AFRUCA’s ability to provide direct support to African parents was strengthened by the establishment of its Child Protection Training and Awareness Project for African Parents in 2007. This project operates primarily in the London boroughs of Haringey, Southwark, Islington and Hackney. Due to the success of the London project, we were able to replicate the programme in the North of England in 2009 with funding from the Department for Education. This was a two year project managed from our Regional Office in Manchester and targeting three cities: Manchester, Liverpool and Newcastle. The grant from the DfE ended in March 2011. We were also able to secure a small grant from Awards for All to replicate the project in Greater Manchester. This project ended in September 2011.
At AFRUCA we recognise that in order to help protect children we need to work with those who have the most impact on a child’s life: the parents. This project provides support for parents who are unfamiliar with Child Protection regulations in England and who have strong cultural expectations about the way their children are raised. Cultural practices and beliefs are beneficial to all members of a community; however there are some practices that cause harm to children. The UK government takes a strong stand on Child Protection. Many African parents are falling foul of the laws on Child Protection which leads to accusations of “significant harm” with children being removed and placed into the care system. The Child Protection Training and Awareness for African Parents Project has been established to work with African parents across England to improve the quality of life of African families in the country. We do this by promoting positive parenting skills, providing knowledge regarding child protection, offering support to parents with children in the child protection systmen and providing information about various issues that affect African communities and their children in the UK.
Youths pose their questions at Redeemed Christian Church of God, Vinebranch in London
This project has four key components:
Since 2007, AFRUCA has worked with over 20 different African communities across London, with over 1500 parents taking part in our training workshops. Some of these communities who have benefited from our programme include the Congolese, Eritrean, Cote d’ivore, Moroccan, Angolan, Ugandan, Somalian, Ghanaian, Rwandan, Ivorien, Zimbabwean, Tanzanian and Nigerian communities. Parents have commended our workshops for helping to improve their skills and develop their knowledge of child protection rules and regulations.
Parents training event at Barnardos Gregory Place Manchester Community groups are usually the first point of contact for African families in crisis, they have also been essential in the development of this project. They have been able to provide direct contact with parents, and identify other groups through which AFRUCA have expanded this project. They have played an active role in organising and running training sessions.
Parents at Andover Estate community Centre Training Faith groups remain the oldest and most stable infrastructure, where the important issues affecting the community are addressed. Therefore, it is important that faith groups are aware of the issues around Child protection, and they have the ability to deal with any cases that may arise. Consequently, AFRUCA continues to work closely with Black majority Churches and mosques across England, delivering free workshops to parents and faith leaders, and holding regular consultative meetings with faith leaders. See also our project: Working with Faith Groups to Safeguard African Children in Yorkshire and Greater Manchester project
“Afruca training helped us understand the differences between discipline and abuse and also the importance of good relations between parents and children.”
Participant, Eglise en Mission, Manchester.
Organisations we have worked with include: in London: the Family Action in Hackney, African Women’s Welfare Group in Haringey, Congolese Financial project as well as the Chettle Court Rangers Youth Football Club also in Haringey, RCCG Rock of Redemption Camberwell, Sword of the Spirit Hackney, RCCG Vinebranch Southwark, RHEMA Evangelical Church Hackney, Rise Community Action in Hackney The African Child Youth Centre in Haringey, two Angolan community groups N’Kanda (the African Woman family Academy and Support) and Hold Hands in Haringey and the Centre for Francophone African Development (CENFACS) in Croydon. In the North of England: Manchester Refugee Support Network (MRSN), African Community Advice North East (ACANE) Newcastle, Zimbabwe’s Women’s Organisation, Pentecostal Baptist Church, Liverpool, Christ Evangelical Ministries and Barnardos Gregory place Manchester, The New Convenant Church in Manchester, Eglise en Mission in Manchester, Lifeline International Church in Blackburn as well as the Redeemed Church branches in Edmonton and Camberwell in London.
"Afruca training was an eye opener for us, we learnt a lot about how to raise children in a loving environment and also how important it is to have quality time with our children. I wish we had this training long back, i recommend the training to all African Parents in UK irrespective of their backgrounds.” Pastor Lorraine Svubure, Lifeline International Centre, Blackburn.
We have also translated our training publications into French. This will make it easier for our French speaking parents to readily participate in our training sessions and be able to easily read and understand the reference material they receive. Training sessions are now tailor-made to suit different community groups especially when dealing with cultural practices from different parts of Africa. We continue to ensure our events and training workshops link up with locally organised cultural and religious events organised by other community and faith groups so as to achieve maximum outreach to African parents. Some sessions are held as “intergenerational events” with parents and children in attendance. This will help parents understand some of the issues migrant children deal with here in the UK. Intensive work has been undertaken to support some families experiencing difficulties in their relationship with social services or other agencies; in other instances advice has been provided to practitioners working with these families. The Department for Education funded element of this programme ended in March 2011. In addition we were able to get a small grant from awards for All to run additional training courses in Greater Manchester. Over the lifetime of both projects, we worked with over 31 faith and community organisations in Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle, Blackburn, Bolton and other places to train over 875 parents in child protection.
Parents training event at Redeemed Church of God Rock of Redemption in Camberwell, London
Altogether, since 2007, as part of this project, we have worked with over 50 different community and faith groups in London, Manchester, Liverpool and Newcastle, reaching at least 2375 African parents. AFRUCA hopes to strengthen this area of work through the provision of more intensive support for African families at risk of breaking down. We are also looking to extend this programme to other local authority areas across England. For further information about our Child Protection Training for African Parents project, click here. To read the mid-term Independent Evaluation report of the London element of the CPAP project, click here
last updated May 2012 |
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