What attracted you to PEAL
training?
The PEAL training covers so many things I am passionate about. For
many years I have worked with parents to support them to have a
voice and contribute to children's services. Now with PEAL I am
part of a practical model that recognises how important parents are
and the role they play in children's learning. And the fact that
PEAL is evidence-based and draws on a range of research is very
exciting - it makes that research accessible to practitioners and
parents and they can then use it to innovate and advocate for
service developments and new ways of working. One of the PEAL
mantras from the research is for parents 'it is not who you are, it
is what you do that counts'. I think this message is liberating and
empowering. It demonstrates that parents from all parts of society
have something special to contribute to their children's
learning.
The PEAL training is participatory. There are
lots of exercises, small group discussions, scenario discussions
and debates. I like this type of training and I believe it is more
effective in engaging and inspiring people. Often people come to
the PEAL workshops fearing a long series of presentations and
lectures, or worse some written tests. What they find is that PEAL
is fun, dynamic and gives them an opportunity to network with other
professionals. And they get a wonderful toolkit of resources at the
end of the day to take back to their settings and use. All
participants leave the workshops with action plans to involve their
parents. So I really think PEAL is one of those projects that has
an impact after the training.
The other thing is that the PEAL team are
great. The support and backup you get as a trainer is amazing. The
other trainers are a varied and experienced bunch. It is great to
be part of a wider team.
What have you learned from the
sessions; anything that surprised you?
That practitioners from early years children centres are
passionate, creative and so willing to learn and share. We have had
such a diversity of people participating on PEAL workshops. From
very experienced practitioners and managers to younger staff and
people in their first jobs. We have had people who work in the
crèche, the baby room, in stay-and-play groups, in family support
settings and in office settings. We have had people with early
years backgrounds, health backgrounds and education backgrounds.
From children's centres and from the private and voluntary sector.
Women and to a lesser extent men.
One very powerful experience happened in a
workshop in London. Throughout the training there had been one very
experienced participant who had given many wonderful examples of
good practice. Many others in the group were looking up to her as a
bit of a role model. Towards the end of the day we were discussing
confidence and how to work with parents. Spontaneously she stood up
and said 'I want to tell the group that though I think I work well
with parents, inside I never felt confident in my work with them.
Today has been the first day I have been able to explore my
work directly with parents rather than with children. Now I feel
able to be honest with myself and build my confidence'. The group
gave her a round of applause. What she had done through her honesty
was give other practitioners the confidence to be honest and
recognise the value of spending time working on new skills.
How do you think your previous
experiences help you to run PEAL sessions in your own particular
way?
I am by nature a very participatory trainer. This is something I
have learned over the years in my community development and
international work. People learn best by doing and by sharing
together. The role of the trainer is to facilitate the sessions,
provide some material and lead some exercises. I enjoy facilitating
debate and getting everyone involved. I also think my experiences
of working with mixed groups has been valuable - particularly
groups of the powerful and the less powerful. In the PEAL workshops
there are often a mix of quite senior people and also some quite
young and junior people. It is important to manage these dynamics
well and make everyone feel equally important and respected. By
nature I am a bit of an iconoclast. I often like to make the point
that to parents and service users, roles and titles are not so
important. Whether you are the chief executive or the cleaner in an
organisation, what matters more is how you respect and welcome
people and how you treat their child. So I always show my
appreciation of the junior staff who are perhaps doing some of the
most important jobs in a children's centre such as working in the
baby room or the crèche. Regardless of status and role we all have
the opportunity to make a real difference.
If you weren't running PEAL you might
be found...
Well, as a self-employed person I could potentially be found
anywhere across the UK working for a customer. I do a lot of
consultancy and training. My specialisms are in involvement,
community engagement, communications and participation. This year I
have been very busy working for ten different organisations and
doing some really interesting things. I am lucky that I decided a
long time ago that I wanted to work in many different areas so I
seek out work with various groups including children and young
people, people with mental health problems, older people and
patients' groups. And what I have found is that all these areas are
actually related. Most families have children and older people,
have disabled people, have people who are patients. Families are
much more diverse than the boxes professionals sometimes put them
in. I enjoy being self-employed. I can be my own boss but at the
same time there is the discipline of never being able to have an
off day because you will probably never hear from that customer
again.
Outside of my self-employed business I have
two other work related passions. I co-founded a social enterprise
several years ago that raises money in the UK and runs a grants
programme in India, Central Asia and Eastern Europe for users of
mental health services. What we found was that user led projects
such as self-help and community action are very effective but few
of the big donors seem prepared to give funds directly to users. So
we give small grants to user led projects - these are run by people
we know who have come out of some of the grim psychiatric hospitals
across the world and who have lived the journey of being a survivor
and want to make a difference. The other thing I do is I am a
Non-Executive Director of a Primary Care Trust in the NHS - I am
that nagging voice on the board that keeps saying 'what about the
patient's perspective, lets listen and involve local people'.