Description
Children of single parents have a significantly higher risk of ending up in institutional care. In the area of Beroun, the project protects these children by increasing parental competences of single parents, promoting resilience of the children and promoting the qualification and networking of organizations and professionals serving these families. The project will provide parallel developmental/learning activities for both single parents and their children, educate professionals and spread the information on services for single parent families in the area online.APERIO will contribute with its expertise on single parent families and best practices in working with them; RC Slunečnice will input their knowledge of the area; Voksne for Barn, a leading expert on promoting children’s mental health, will input their expertise in working with children of single parents. The partnership will develop and promote better ways of protecting the resilience and well-being of children of single parents.
Summary of project results
The project’s aim was to promote the situation of children and youth growing up in one-parent families. We targeted children, single parents and professionals working with them. In particular we focused on increasing resilience and well-being of children and parenting skills of single parents. Evaluation results show that this objective has been reached. Support of all involved groups and founding of a self-help group of single mothers increase the sustainability of the achieved results. A support programme for children and youth and personal development programme for parents was prepared and took place in Beroun. Both programmes were preceded by a training of child minders focused on work with children from disadvantaged and one-parent families. The training was carried out by Voksne for Barn. Detailed syllabuses and facilitators’guides were developed for both programmes. Evaluation showed significant increase of parental skills and overall well-being increase at children. Subsequently we prepared and carried out 8 seminars for professionals aiming to increase their knowledge and skills for working with one-parent families and facilitate their networking. Project aimed to increase the internal capacity of APERIO, and a new website was designed, increasing thus our capacity to communicate with our current and future clients and promoting thus the impact of our work. The main project outcome was enhancing the possibilities of support for one-parent families in the region of Beroun. We increased awareness of one-parent family issues among families, public and professionals as well as institutions and NGO’s working with them. Specifically, we increased parenting skills of 33 parents and resilience and well-being of 39 children. Thanks to Voksne for Barn, expert skills of beneficiary and Czech partner were promoted. Moreover, a complex and sustainable system of supporting one-parent families has been established at the Czech partner, RC Slunecnice, Beroun.
Summary of bilateral results
The cooperation with VfB supported successful realization and completion of the project, and significantly influenced project target achievements. VfB shared with APERIO their experience and best practices in work with single parents and professionals working with single parents. It had an impact on piloting the longterm education course for single parents, as well as seminars for professionals.