Insights from Our Recent Community of Practice with Better Finglas
Gill Moses and Eileen Brosnan from Parents Plus, recently facilitated a bespoke Community of Practice session with a group of practitioners from Better Finglas who were trained in and delivering the Parents Plus ADHD programme to families in their area.
The online ADHD Community of Practice session was specifically tailored to the topics and challenges for this highly motivated and skilled group of Finglas based practitioners. It was full of discussion, sharing of experience, reflection on core facilitation skills and troubleshooting – the 90 minutes flew by.
Focus for this group:
- Content and structure for the post-programme follow-up group session offered to participating parents at 3 or 6 months after the 8 week programme ends.
- Ensure the parents come back and get the opportunity to talk through their successes, continuing challenges and get onward signposting to any further support needed.
- The importance of parent feedback
- Refreshed on the Solution Focused Practice model
- Applying this approach to group work and the pre group individual goal setting sessions.
Feedback from the Better Finglas practitioners
- “Sharing of information for programme follow up sessions – it gave me a real fire in my belly to arrange the session for parents that had attended as I truly believe it will be very beneficial for them to reconnect.”
- “Really helpful discussions and information/tips supporting facilitation skills and challenges of delivery.”
- “To have a space to reflect and discuss our learning as a group.”
- “Knowing there are ongoing Community of Practice sessions and opportunities to check in with Parents Plus when needed.”
Better Finglas is an Area-Based Childhood (ABC) programme for Prevention and Early Intervention, funded by the Department of Children, Disability, Equality, Integration and Youth (DCDEIY), delivered through the Prevention Partnership and Family Support (PPFS) within Tusla. Bernardo’s is the lead agency for Better Finglas.
A key aim is to respond to family support and parenting needs in their community. Having identified the need for families struggling to support their children around ADHD issues, many of whom were on waitlists for assessments and services, the team set about their first round of delivering the Parents Plus ADHD programme. This programme is suitable for parents of children with a diagnosis of ADHD, as well as for parents of children with symptoms of ADHD and/or who are awaiting assessment.
