START DATE AND DURATION: June 2024Families seeking safety in the UK carry with them a wealth of parenting practices that can help their children thrive.
Yet many of these families are housed in unsuitable accommodation. Small, crowded living spaces impact children’s movement and play, while having little or no access to cooking facilities makes providing nutritious meals almost impossible. Such families also find themselves in an unfamiliar culture, and navigating complex systems in order to get the support they need. This all takes its toll.
For those with young children, such environments can severely impact their development, leading to poor health and well-being outcomes that can persist throughout a lifetime.
These parents need additional support to feel empowered, even in these difficult circumstances.
We are working directly with parents to understand how they can be better supported while living in such settings.
Through a mixture of research, workshops and trauma-informed theater, we will explore creative and adaptive ways of parenting. In particular, we are seeking to understand how parents might draw on their own heritage and assets to help their children flourish.
With what we find, we will co-design a culturally competent parental support programme that is tailored to meet the specific needs of these families, and that draws on the strengths they already hold.
This work will have implications beyond this community, offering a model for asset-based and culturally-informed support for all parents.
