Parenting Services

About Cardiff Flying Start Parenting Services

Being a parent can bring joy and happiness as well as challenges, at times. The aim of Cardiff Flying Start Parenting Services is to work in partnership with families living in Cardiff to improve parenting confidence and skills, strengthen relationships and nurture well-being and resilience.

Through parenting positively and building meaningful relationships, parents can help raise healthy children, develop a more calm and peaceful household, with fewer arguments and conflicts. Research tells us that children who grow up with positive parenting are more likely to:

• Do better at school
• Have better relationships with family members and friends
• Have higher self-esteem and confidence
• Have fewer behavioural issues
• Be able to manage their emotions better

Cardiff Flying Start will work with your family individually or in a group with other families. Some programmes can work with you individually in your home or in a local meeting place. Groups are run across Cardiff in venues such as schools and hubs. Our team work to ensure these are inviting and welcoming environments,which are accessible to all. Our team are happy to work in schools and community venues in your area. Groups usually run during term-time. If you have any concerns about being able to access a venue, please talk to us. We are happy to make adjustments to meet your access needs.

All our group programmes are led by members of the Cardiff Flying Start Team who are fully trained in all the programmes we deliver and experienced in working with parents, children and young people.

Within groups there will be other parents/carers. If our team are working with you individually in your home or in a community setting, you will be working with one or two members of our team.

Wherever possible,we provide an on-site crèche for children under the age of 8. These are staffed by qualified staff and are also fully funded (no cost to you). Please make sure you contact us in advance to reserve your place. If you have a baby attending the crèche and you would like to breastfeed during the group,we can support you.

We also provide drinks & healthy snacks.

Parents Plus

A team led by an Educational Psychologist, delivering individual parenting support within the home or community venue. Our team has a wealth of experience in working with parents/carers, children and young people. The Psychologists in our teams are interested in how children and young people think, feel, behave and develop. The team receive ongoing supervision and training from the psychologists to make sure that our work is informed by psychological theory and research.

Find out more on parent plus.

Stay And Play

Stay & Play sessions are a chance for parents/carers get together and spend time playing with your children. It can be wonderful playing together in your own home, and Stay & Play can add to that by offering you a place to come together where you don’t have to worry about tidying up afterwards. Parents can enjoy playing too!

Find out more on stay and play

Your Baby is Amazing

A small, intimate group run over 4 weeks for parents/carers and their baby – A wonderful opportunity to find out how amazing your baby really is! Over the 4-weeks, you and your baby will explore the following topics:

• Hello baby
• Face-to-Face tuning into your baby
• Come and play with me
• Sing me a song/tell me a story

Parent Nurturing Programme

Parent Nurturing Programme from Family Links believes that children are rewarding, stimulating and fun although looking after them can be stressful and challenging. The Parent Nurturing Programme  helps deal with these challenges so that you can have a calmer, happier family life. The Parent Nurturing Programme aims to help adults understand and manage feelings and behaviour and become more positive and nurturing in their relationships with children and each other. It encourages an approach to relationships that gives children and adults an emotionally healthy start for their lives, which contributes to learning.

Over the 10 week course you will look at topics including:

• Understanding why children behave the way they do
• Recognising the feelings behind behaviours (ours and theirs)
• Exploring different approaches to discipline
• Finding ways to develop co-operation and self-discipline in children
• The importance of looking after and nurturing ourselves

Find out more on parent nurturing.

It’s Child’s Play

An 8-week course for parents/carers of children between 18 months and 4 years of age full of hands on fun experiences to develop an understanding of how a child learns and develops through play.

Over the 8 weeks you will:

• Understand how play supports physical development
• Understand how play supports emotional well-being through books, stories and rhymes
• Understand how play helps a child to develop their thinking skills.
• Understand how play helps a child to develop language.
• Understand how play supports speech and language development
• Understand how playing with a child can help build relationships; show care and affection; and be fun for parents too.