1. Parent Pioneers Early support to parents with a learning disability or difficulty Sue Reed Mencap Strategic Lead for Families

2. Three year funding from the Department of Health 2012-2015 Two Local Authority pilot sites Consortium of sector specialists –Mencap –Mellow Parenting –Elfrida Society –Norah Fry Research Centre Parent Pioneers - Who are we?

3. What are we trying to do? Level the playing field for families where a parent has a learning difficulty or disability by providing accessible services Increase the support to families in their community Improve the knowledge and skills of early years services

4. Parent Pioneers – what is the offer for families? Accessible, evidence based Parenting Programme for parents with a learning difficulty or disability – Mellow Bumps and Mellow Babies Families matched with volunteer parent mentor to help build on the programme and to encourage parents to use community support systems Parents reference group to road test the training, develop the mentoring brief and inform the project development

5. What is the offer for practitioners ? Additional Parenting Programme that can meet the learning styles of a range of people Training for managers and staff across services in understanding and working with people with a learning disability or learning difficulty Independent evaluation and evidence of impact and outcome for the families

6. Contact details If you would like to be updated on the progress of Parent Pioneers please contact; sue.reed@mencap.org lucy.virgo@mencap.org