NEWS AND PUBLICITY

NEWS

Changing Families is now working in partnership with Relate in Plymouth through Kidskope.
This academic year we completed the TaMHs Training for Secondary support teachers to deliver the Changing Families Project in their own schools.
We made a video with Parents Apart with young people from Changing Families which was shown at the ASDAN celebration event in Bristol.
This academic year we are working with the Changing Families Project in Plymouth schools.
We will train Secondary Mentors and continue our work in Primary Schools.

PUBLICITY

Daily Mail 8th April 2008
Lessons in how to cope with a divorce
Family breakdown is now a fact of life, with one in three marriages ending in divorce. Every week in Britain another 5000 children become part of a single parent family. The effects can be devastating - the Changing Families Project runs in scores of Primary schools and Secondary schools in Devon and Plymouth - and there are plans to roll it out across the country with training hanbook for teachers - Nina Wroe said: 'We definitely turn lives around. We help children to deal with their problems and also help them get on with thedir lives.'

12th March 2008- Plymouth Herald
Finding Answer to Family Trauma - Sixth-Formers lead workshop on break-ups! CITY sixth-formers became workshop leaders at an event designed to help children come to terms with family break-up. Pupils .... led the Changing Families session, part of a conference organised by the city's Primary Care Trust entitled 'Two Heads are Better Than One'.
The students showed great confidence in running a session with a group of adults and it was a great example of the outstanding work young people do across Plymouth to help others.
The Two Heads Are Better Than One conference was delivered by Community and Adolescent Mental Health Services in collaboration with Plymouth children's and Young People's Mental health and Psychological Well-Being Network.

28th July 2008 - Plymouth Herald
Students Win Diana Awards
A PROJECT aimed at helping children deal with family issues has resulted in presentation of the prestigious Diana Awards to a group of students.
A group of sixth form students at Tamarside Community College have been presented with the awards.
The students worked through the project themselves, then helped other pupils of younger secondary age and at several local primary schools.

14th July 2007 SecEd The only voice for secondary education
Front Page

Pupils helped to cope with family break-ups.
A pioneering project to help youngsters caught up in family breakdowns is attracting attention from schools and local authorities across the country.

With divorce at an all time high and a quarter of the children in the UK living with just one parent, more and more youngsters are having to cope with the pain of family break-ups.Humanities teacher, Nina Wroe, former deputy head of an Exeter secondary school, launched the Changing Families project 10 years ago to address the issue of family separation.

She was concerned that family break-ups often lead to youngsters losing confidence and self-esteem and can trigger problems like underachievement, disruptive behaviour and friendship difficulties. The Changing Families project has proved so successful - more than 500 children from Devon schools have participated so far - that Mrs Wroe has now begun training year 12 pupils to deliver the programme to younger children. The highly structured sessions always take place under the supervision of a qualified adult, but the year 12s plan the activities and run them.

Mrs Wroe told SecEd: "Research has shown for some time that families go through change, such as divorce, separation and remarriage, undergo stress - which may well impact on the children. Research indicates that the restructuring of families is a long term process and that the effects on the children may not be apparent immediately. One common theme running through it is that youngsters blame themselves for what has happened. There is often that feeling of guilt that they have caused it and when there parents meet new partners that it is just as difficult, if not more difficult," she added.