CONTEXT/BACKGROUND The relationship between parents and children is changing over time, with new technologies, modern ways of communication between children, different ways of spending free time parents are on a daily basis adapting to new information on how to communicate with their children, nurture their maturation and development and bring them up into confident and vigilant children. With the improvement of parent's personal growth, communication and their parental skills they are gaining solid grounds for further development of their professional skills as well. With this project we aim to influence the lives of adult educators, parents and children in a way so that all three groups gain valuable life tools. OBJECTIVES The project aims to improve personal growth, communication and parenting skills of parents as well as professional skills of adult educators setting the following objectives: - to support parents who are low skilled in acquiring and developing skills and key competences (computer skills, language skills, financial skills, giving feedback, negotiation, assertiveness and goal setting skills, problem solving skills..), - to enhance the adult trainer's professional skills and ability to develop collaborative relationship with parents and their children, - to extend the competences of adult educators who support and mentor parents in the teaching of various skills through the use of digital technologies so that they can provide high quality learning opportunities tailored to the needs of both TGs, - to develop the innovative learning material for the adult educators/trainers/mediators and to adapt it to the digital platform for better collaboration between adult educators and parents and simultaneously, children, - to connect adult trainers and parents (and their children) through digital methods of learning and knowledge transfer, based on scientific findings of modern psychology and preventive sciences, - to encourage low skilled parents to develop and upgrade their personal growth, communication and parenting skills with adult educator's mentoring and guidance, - to implement the SKILLS4PARENTS model which will easily be transferable and used for solving different problems. PROJECT METHODOLOGY will be based on two principles: 1) The development of the outputs and products will be the best suited to the needs of the identified target group; 2) To make the outputs and products of the project sustainable, transferable and usable for a large number of stakeholders, and after the end of the eligible period. Next to the active involvement of the target group throughout project phases, the SKILLS4PARENTS project uses interdisciplinary approach in preparation, management and implementation by using the diverse knowledge and experience of the members of the strategic project team. In this way, interdisciplinary collaboration will ensure the realization of project objectives. METHODOLOGY consists of a set of activities of THREE INTELLECTUAL OUTPUTS to follow each other in logical way, as follows: IO1 - Methodological framework SKILLS4PARENTS, IO2 – Guidelines – SKILLS4PARENTS - train the trainer course, IO3 - Online digital platform and community. The project SKILLS4PARENTS will take 24 months to implement. SKILLS4PARENTS TARGET GROUP: 1. ADULT EDUCATORS: We are aiming at adult educators because of their previous good teaching skills, knowledge on transferring skills as well as communications skills but also the motivation to work with parents who need guidance. 2. PARENTS: We are aiming at low skilled parents who will be motivated to participate in focus groups, interviews and data collection through which they would address their difficulties, needs and everyday challenges in raising their children. SKILLS4PARENTS project aims to involve: - at least 60 people (5 adult educators and 5 parents per partner organization) into the Methodological framework SKILLS4PARENTS, - at least 20 adult educators into the Train the trainer course, - at least 70 parents into the multiplier events (Parents Day) getting the information on possibilities to use online digital platform Skills4Parents, - at least 160 adult educators into the multiplier events (Parents Day) getting the information on possibilities to use online digital platform Skills4Parents, - to involve and inform at least 70 stakeholders from the partnership countries, out of which there will be 20 EU level stakeholders engaged from the P1 COFACE Families Europe. The project promotes the exchange of advanced methodology and the online digital education tool that can help to address common challenges related to the adult education priorities across the partner countries and on the EU level. SKILLS4PARENTS will have an impact on EU and national educational systems in the form of giving contributions to achieve the goal of EU community to become a knowledge society and the most competent knowledge-based economy with greater social cohesion.
We wanted to develop a new parenting skills model to help both parents and educators address the challenges of parenting today, boosting communication inside the family and within the wider community. This is also important in policy terms both in the education and the social fields, to help create a stream of support for upskilling of families and educators in this important field of first education of children. But also in practice terms, to make the parenting journey more visible as well as the skills needed, since this is still undervalued.
We applied for this project because support for parents/families as first educators is essential yet quite underdeveloped across the EU in both social and education sectors. Parents need help to boost their understanding of the skills which they need in their parenting journey, both to help them as individuals and transmit skills to next generations, and also for overall family well-being, in line with international conventions on fundamental rights. We also wished to explore the potential of technology and digital tools to help them, as well as the help professionals. Educators also need a better understanding of the family environment of the people they work with: the challenges of parenting, the need to empower them through their different education programmes (parenthood, social support, mental health and more).