The Parenting Team

Parenthood can be extremely rewarding and enjoyable. It can also be demanding, frustrating and exhausting. Our Parenting Team is here to support parent and carers to raise healthy, well-rounded children in a loving and stable environment.

The Parenting Team provides a variety of services to families across Shropshire depending on their level of need. All of our interventions are based on the Solihull Approach.

Take a look at this short video which explains what the Solihull Approach is...

Parenting practitioners offer the following:

• Parenting help and support line
• Understanding Your Child, and Understanding Your Child with SEND Groups
• Sleep Tight workshops
• One-to-one support for most vulnerable families

Play practitioners work with families where the parents/carers need support with appropriately playing, engaging or interacting with their children to develop a nurturing relationship. They also support children and young people where gaps in their emotional development have been identified due to trauma. 

Play practitioners are trained in the Solihull Approach, the Thrive Approach and the BUSS Model, and will use these approaches as and when appropriate.

Do you have any questions around child development and parenting?

You can call our parenting help and support line where one of our trained parenting practitioners will be ready to listen to you. The helpline is open Monday to Thursday from 9:30am to 4:30pm, and Friday from 9:30am to 3:30pm. Call 01743 250950.

If you have concerns about a child’s safety or wellbeing please call First Point of Contact on 0345 678 9021.

If you'd like to find out about other services the Parenting Team offers please email parenting.team@shropshire.gov.uk

We have a multi-user licence for a variety of online course for parents and carers which enables all Shropshire residents to access any of these courses for free.

Online courses are a great way to access support at a time and place which suits you and your family. The courses are all split into short modules, each around 20 minutes long, and you can access the courses whenever you like. Your access doesn't expire. Try out the taster course - 'Understanding your Child’s Feelings'.

We're always interested in your views and feedback to develop and improve our service offer, and for anyone who does undertake one of the online courses we'd appreciate it if you could complete a short (less than five minutes) survey. The online evaluation is completely anonymous and none of your details will be accessible to us.

Solihull Approach foundation training

In Shropshire we deliver two-day Solihull Approach foundation training to all professionals working with families. The Solihull Approach is a highly practical way of working with families within a robust theoretical structure. It's an evidence-based approach.

The training covers the key principles of the approach and establishes how they link to practice and everyday work. The approach explores the quality of the parent-child relationship and how this is crucial to the way the brain wires itself, impacting upon the child’s ability to regulate their own emotions and behaviours. It has a major contribution to make to the ways in which practitioners can work with families to ensure that children have a good emotional start and support throughout childhood.

For more information, dates and cost please contact the parenting team directly on 01743 250950 or email: parenting.team@shropshire.gov.uk

Understanding Your Child/Teen - groups and workshops

In Shropshire we offer ‘Understanding Your Child’ and ‘Understanding Your Teen’ parenting workshops and groups based on the Solihull Approach. These offer a highly practical way of working with families within a robust theoretical structure. 

"Quality sleep is essential for children’s growth and development. A decent night’s sleep will help them to do better at school, allow them to react more quickly to situations, have a more developed memory, learn more effectively and solve problems, plus it will make them less susceptible to colds and other minor ailments, less irritable and better behaved! There are so many different factors which can affect children’s sleep." (Taken from The Sleep Charity)

The Sleep Charity webpage has a lot of resources and information on how to support a good night’s sleep for adults, children and teenagers.

The Parenting Team is delivering five-week ‘Sleep Tight’ workshops. These have been developed by The Sleep Charity, and our parenting practitioners have been trained to deliver these to parents and carers. If you'd like to meet other parents/carers and explore how you can support your children and your family to have quality sleep or to address specific challenges you're experiencing, these workshops are for you.

At the end of this course parents/carers will be able to:

• Recognise the role of sleep hygiene to improve sleep
• Identify causes of sleep issues and appropriate practical strategies to try
• Interpret sleep diaries to identify potential sleep issues