News: A project to help parents make the most of their role as their child’s first and most important teacher is now establishing groups across Moray. The PEEP initiative - Parents Early Education Partnership - is supported by NHS Grampian and Moray Council as part of the Early Years Collaborative in Moray. The roll-out was announced today at Elgin Library by Councillor George Alexander, vice-chairman of the council’s children and young people’s services committee, and Susan Maclaren, the council’s head of integrated children’s services. They were joined by parents and children from Lossiemouth and Elgin and by NHS Grampian community nursery nurse Elizabeth Duncan, who set up Moray’s first PEEP programme in Lossiemouth three years ago. In a partnership between NHS Grampian and Moray Council, 18 people, including staff from both organisations, volunteers from the charity Step By Step in Moray and a parent from the Lossiemouth PEEP group, were trained to facilitate new groups. With funding from the Scottish Government’s Early Years Change Fund, these trainers started groups this autumn in Elgin, Buckie and Forres. Mrs Duncan said: “PEEP is an enjoyable and structured series of one-hour sessions once a week involving parents with babies and pre-school children. “Parents get a lot out of the sessions, helping them with confidence and knowledge. We emphasise communication − this includes singing, story-telling, and talking. Play and interaction is also important, using everyday household items. Young children spend most of their time with their families and this is also a time when they are learning a great deal very quickly. PEEP helps families make the most of this.” Susan Maclaren said: “Spending time playing, talking and having fun is the best thing we can do for our children. PEEP can help families to make the best of this time and can help to ensure that we give our children the best possible start to life.” She added: “Learning together through PEEP helps families to develop and grow together and we hope that the service can be taken to more areas of Moray.” PEEP supports a wide range of developmental and educational needs which are age and stage appropriate. It has a set curriculum, but is also flexible enough to incorporate resources such as Play@home - a programme of activities to support the development and wellbeing of babies and young children - and the Before Words programme for parents with young babies, which is developed by NHS Grampian’s speech and language therapy service in Moray and delivered by health visitors. Research into the effect of participation in PEEP by Oxford and Warwick Universities - peep - has found that attending PEEP can have a beneficial impact on both parent and child.
Posted on: Mon, 24 Nov 2014 11:42:29 +0000
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