Taking care of yourself as a facilitator when delivering Parents Plus Programmes
In this article, Parents Plus Disability Programme Lead, Ciara Ni Raghallaigh explores the importance of self-care for practitioners delivering Parents Plus programmes. Just as we encourage parents to prioritise their own well-being while supporting their families, it’s equally vital for facilitators to take care of themselves.
As part of the Parents Plus programmes, we encourage parents to reflect on their self-care. Taking care of yourself as a practitioner is important too and will come in many different forms. Having a colleague or manager to debrief with around the programme delivery is very helpful. This is already built into the programme implementation structure where you meet and review with your co-facilitator in a ‘co-supervision’ space each week.
Pausing to reflect on your practice and how the participants are engaging with each other, the content, and you as the group leaders, will help you process the session delivery. It also gives time to consider parents’ emotional sharing that often goes with the territory when running parent programmes. Having good supportive relationships with colleagues, staying connected with support people outside of work, staying active, engaging with activities and hobbies that replenish you are all features of good mental health and well-being.
Practical Tips for Facilitator Self-Care:
- Time: Before the programme starts, plan with your co-facilitator to protect time in your working week to deliver a good-quality programme. This may require five hours per week for experienced facilitators and up to seven hours per week if this is your first programme delivery (see your manual for more information)
- Planning: Start planning for your programme at least two months (or more) in advance of the first session. This gives you time to advertise, recruit parents and complete goal-setting with each family. It may require up to ten hours per co-facilitator over this pre-programme period. This time is well worth it to engage parents to attend your programme.
- Having back-up: Is there another person on your team who can support as you deliver a programme? This person could assist with room set-up/tidy-up, welcoming parents and making tea for in-person courses. They could help with technology issues and admin tasks for online courses. If you or your co-facilitator can’t attend a session this extra person may be able to step in so the session can go ahead.
- Parents helping: Any offers of help made by parents within your group to assist co-facilitators each week can be welcomed. This may include help with room set-up/tidy-up, making tea/coffee, perhaps offering to bake or bring resources to share with the group. This can foster group bonding and as well as supporting co-facilitators with tasks that need to be done weekly.
You and your co-facilitator are welcome to avail of coaching sessions on Zoom with a Parents Plus supervisor. To set this up, and for any further practice support/troubleshooting, you can contact Karin Todd at karin@parentsplus.ie.
