Early Years Collective

Our Early Years Team are made up of support workers who have extensive experience of working with young children in Fife Gingerbread. The focus is on providing holistic family support to empower parents to better understand their child’s needs, development and promote the bond between parents and their children. The project provides early intervention support and works closely with other family support services in Fife.

Who will we support?

• We will support families throughout Fife.

• The family should have their child/children aged 0-8 years old living with them.

• The named person linked with the child will have identified wellbeing concerns.
  

What will we do?

• Family Support Workers will support families with children aged 0-8 years at home by focusing on their child’s development and wellbeing. Through empowering families, they can provide a safe and nurturing home environment.

• Fife Teen Parent Project Support Workers will support families (up to the parents 20th birthday) by providing specialist support to support young parents in areas such as mental health, attachment, play and child development.

• Dad & Me Support Worker will work with fathers to help them to create a lasting attachment with their child. Our previous work evidenced that this will benefit the long term mental health for both child and parent.

•  Fife Gingerbread Volunteers will be supported to create opportunities in communities to help families come together, create friendships and share experiences through group work and individual support. Our Volunteer Coordinator will focus on growing this support within the community. Our Allotment project in Kelty will continue to offer volunteer opportunities and create a friendly space for families to grow, learn and play together.

• Family Learning Opportunities will be available for young families to come together for peer support, learning and development. Enabling young parents to understand their child(ren)s ages and stages, and to work towards their own aspirations.

As part of our work we will advocate for parents and children, and raise awareness of challenges they are facing to inspire change.

We deliver our work by offering group and 121 sessions with all families that we work with. Although our work is holistic, the focus is on improving the relationship between the parents and their children. All of our support is tailored to meet the needs and wants of the family and can include things such as sensory play, messy play, baby massage, play groups and structured programmes. This offers families a safe space to come together and support one another, empowering parents,  as well as unique support from our Support Workers. We are very proud to have Support Workers who specialise by supporting; teen parents, parents over the age of 20, Dad’s and offering family learning opportunities. This affords our families many opportunities to work towards their longer term ambitions as well as addressing short term issues.