Birmingham saw its first ever Parenting conference last week at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre.
The conference brought together parents and carers from across the region to explore how support services can be improved for them and their children, with the aim of reducing violence and making the region safer.
A number of speakers and workshops explored themes of exploitation, trauma, mental health, neurodiversity, loss, bereavement and online harm.
The conference was funded by the West Midlands Violence Reduction Partnership and delivered by Birmingham Children’s Trust and Blesst, a Birmingham based youth organisation.
The West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner, Simon Foster said: “It is of utmost importance that we create spaces for conversations with parents and carers.
“Parenting can feel very isolating at times. We need to be listening to our communities to understand their experiences and how we can best support them.”
Head of Service at Birmingham Children’s Trust, Clair Graham said: “We hope that parents and carers have gone away with a bit of a toolkit, strategies and some tips on how to continue to parent their children safely in a modern society.
“We are hoping we will be able to have another conference in Birmingham, and would like to see many of these conferences across the whole of the region.”
Richard Campbell, CEO of Blesst added: “We created this safe space where people were allowed to open up and ask those difficult questions they don’t often get to ask as parents”.
