Parenting can and should be rewarding, joyful, and positive, but it can, at times, be stressful, worrying and exhausting. Jonothan Hope, Director of Bath & Bristol Parenting Hub, believes that parents should have access to high-quality, effective parenting support not just for those with pre-school children but all the way through school and into the teens.
That’s why he will be running two free Triple P parenting courses for Bath parents starting mid-January 2024. The first will take place online on Tuesday evening, starting Tuesday 16th January. The other will take place, face-to-face on Friday mornings, starting on Friday 19th January, at Burdall’s Yard on London Road, near Cleveland Bridge in Bath.
Back in March 2023, Jonothan identified a gap in parenting support for parents of children aged five and over. Children’s Centres are a great resource for pre-school parenting, but there is a severe lack of free parenting support in Bath for parents of school-aged children.
“Triple P (Positive Parenting Programme) originates from Queensland University in Australia and has been used across the globe for over 40 years,” explains Jonothan. “In short, it’s been tried and tested by parents worldwide and is proven to work.
“Positive parenting is a practical, strategy-based course, which equips parents with a wide range of tools and techniques to deal with all sorts of situations. It helps parents to increase desirable behaviour such as following instructions, social skills, managing emotionally challenging situations and independence. It also provides positive ways to eliminate undesirable behaviour through the use of rules, reminders, reward charts and positive consequences.”
Jonothan has been running parenting courses for 12 years, in Bristol, Wiltshire and South Gloucestershire. In March this year he set up a new Community Interest Company to address the lack of free universal parenting support for Bath parents, whilst continuing to deliver courses for Bristol parents too.
“With a over two decades’ experience working with children, young people and families, including primary school teaching and activity provision, I’ve seen a lot of behavioural challenges and developed effective ways to help build young people’s resilience and confidence,” said Jonothan.
“Parents who have completed the course consistently see a huge improvement in behaviour and positivity at home. Having a third-party parenting professional offering support and ideas gives parents the confidence to try things in the knowledge that they are evidence-based techniques.”
Each course comprises four weekly group sessions where all the course content is delivered, followed by three individual telephone or video call check-ins to help with implementation, followed by a final group session to celebrate and plan for the future. There are 10 places on each course, but for parents who don’t get a place, they can register their details for the next course due to start in Spring /Summer 2024.
Any parent interested in finding out more about the courses, should visit https://parentinghub.co.uk/bath-parenting or email email hidden; JavaScript is required.