Hard to Reach Parents

1
Hard to Reach Parents
2
Who are they?

• How do social factors mediate parent
  presence/absence?
• SES
• Gender
• Culture
• Place/Location

3
Who are the hard to reach parents?

• Isolation physical or social related to mental
  health problems not even the slightest
  connection to draw them into services
• Isolation geographic eg rural/remote
• ESL surface involvement (eg food)
  overwhelming or frightening aspects of
  institutional involvement
• Overlay between SES access to services
  location of services inversely proportional to
  location of disadvantaged groups eg doctors, bus
  routes eg Gawler (no bus) Virginia, Angle Vale,
  OSullivans beach, Aldinga, Mallala, Two Wells
• Contrasting example eg Kilburn a number of
  services but still have hard to reach parents
  a lot of refugee families settlement issues
  so much to deal with that taking child to a
  centre not priority
• Access to childcare subsidy for refugee families
  depends on program

4
Hard to reach cont.

• Complexity may keep parents away
• Not understanding financial arrangements
• Not understanding timelines eg had to exclude a
  family that was consistently late (10 minutes)
  late fees mounting up
• When fees went up children stopped coming cost
  will keep parents away also in after school
  care, parents leaving kids home rather than
  paying higher fees not just low income parents

5
Hard to reach cont.

• When you meet with a family and want to raise an
  issue and they bolt (eg finances, health)
  they dont like talking about it and you lose
  them sometimes if you want to keep the children
  in the service, you may decide not to raise the
  issue
• Not providing enough nappies can prompt excluding
  behaviour of some staff an example of policy
  getting in the way of relationships need to
  raise staff awareness
• The parents that are working full-time, its
  harder for them to withdraw their children but
  the hard to reach may not be working full time
  or at all
• The child care bunny hop they go to centres
  all around the area looking for respite care no
  consistency for child or family

6
Hard to reach cont.

• Different parenting skills a parent who may
  have difficulty managing need the child to go
  into care
• Postnatal depression can be a factor
• There are more successes than runners but
  runners are habitual
• Deal promptly with issues dont leave it
  could be minimising abuse, suicide, depression
  even if you risk the family leaving the service
• If confrontative early on, how does this relate
  to the development of rapport over time?
• If you have a short period of time, need to
  devote intense work to the child

7
Hard to reach

• Present parents more fathers now
• Professional development on how to work with
  fathers
• Fathers are now expected to be involved new
  need to reach
• Fatherhood workers new body of knowledge about
  working with fathers
• Mothers also more interested in father
  involvement
• But also male bashing women bad-mouthing men
• Whenever men are getting involved with children
  suspicion re abuse possibilities
• Cultural values can impact on relationships
  between male and female workers parents
• Age can impact on relationships between male and
  female workers parents
• Conversations are different male exchange
  conversations body contact eg back slapping,
  hand-shaking

8
Hard to reach

• Working parents
• Angry parents
• Grieving parents
• Families where there has been sexual abuse
  fearful of the system
• Families where there has been relationship
  breakdown and ongoing conflicts
• Drug and alcohol issues
• Educational and literacy factors
• Guilty parents stigma secrets to keep
• Hard to reach both parents at the same time to
  get a team
• Single parents
• Grandparents
• Foster parents
• Adoptive parents
• Parents who have had a history of negative
  experience with the service

9
Reading Parents and Children

• What meanings are generated by parent absence?
• What meanings are generated by parent presence?
• How does professional identity and practice
  mediate ideal parent ideas?

10
Reflect on Parent Experiences

• Alexandras research findings on barriers
• Strategies
• Local, user- driven and accountable
• Address barriers
• Obtain input, consultation, ownership
• Develop parent-centred supportive networks

11
What strategies do you use to reach parents or
make your service easy to reach?

• Goals reach for what?
• Success stories?

12
Strategies

• Initial contact smile greeting, being
  available, first impressions really are important
• The frontline staff need to know clearly what
  they are allowed to say to families and what is
  not part of their role giving them feedback
  about how well they performed and how they could
  do it differently managers need to be aware of
  how clients are being treated
• Training is important
• PDR if people arent able to do that role they
  shouldnt be there

13

• Working within smaller communities, going in
  rather than waiting for them to come
• Constantly showing we are available
• Calling people to say hello and see how things
  are going
• Open times to come in
• Providing information through newsletters not
  just about service but what else Is happening in
  the community

14

• Parents taking children to visit services are
  identified by professionals and encouraged to go
  to a play group
• Attending with that person
• Continue encouraging and tell of benefits until
  that person is ready to continue
• Taxi service for 2/3 weeks
• Setting up parent networks
• Organisation bus walking buses picking up
  people on the way
• Catering for cultural needs of Aboriginal
  families eg an Aboriginal meeting place outside
  under shelter with campfire made by Aboriginal
  community
• Accommodating transience so people can go away
  and come back
• Talking with parents about how to support their
  children
• Accepting valuing the uniqueness of each family
• Have a purpose for parents engaging them to use
  some of their skills and expertise at their level
  of want need eg literacy bags for a school
  community

15

• Why do we want to reach parents?
• So that child can have a successful learning
  experience
• Strategies - listen and hear the parents stories
• Strength-based practices
• Clear information eg pamphlets, whiteboard
• Acts of kindness eg make a sandwich
• Something special events eg blokes night (play
  dough, construction, singing and dancing better
  than the mums)
• Positive about the child show you know and
  value them
• Show you are valuing catering for their childs
  needs
• Quality trained staff
• Building links with home, kindy, school eg photo
  book
• Building and consulting community values voices
  of parent, child staff
• Food how that can be such a challenge for
  parents with the emphasis on healthy diet
  snobbery in providing gimecky foods
• Group of mums who didnt want to access
  mainstream playgroups food was a big issue also
  brand clothes, pram etc. supporting to move
  into mainstream validating choices

16

• Hospitality encompasses much of what we want
  parents to experience
• Parents want results do they want
  relationships?
• Breakfast bar way to stand around and have a
  chat
• Feedback complaints positive spin if we
  havent got the complaint we cant improve
  naming as compliments and complaints as part
  of induction inform parents they have the right
  to make complaints give feedback quickly
  follow up ask Did anyone get back to you?
• You can learn a lot more about the family from a
  complaint

17
Why reach parents?

• Sometimes in a community there is a history of
  attitudes in relation to the service need to
  work with them to examine why they have those
  needs develop strategies to address those
  concerns
• Also may have housekeeping reasons for contacting
  parents
• Early intervention is a reason for reaching
  parents
• Creating an environment where people can feel
  safe and respected modelling for parents - not
  so much about what you do but about how you are
• Being seen to be responsive to peoples needs,
  issues, who they are
• Building social networks
• Sharing knowledge families have a wealth of
  experience professionals can learn a lot
• Preschool is the first educational setting a
  primary position to be in to encourage families
  to have high expectations of educational settings
  to expect to be respected
• Example in a country area a preschool had a
  3,000 sq mile catchment, children coming in on
  buses, established a community play space not
  just for parents regular working bees people
  got caught up in the achievement over a 2 year
  period drew together families and as new people
  came in to the community they were drawn in.