Any follow-up contact is organised by the Signposts worker with the parents directly. We do not generally provide services ourselves, but 'signpost' people on. We can make phone calls or write letters on behalf of families, and can accompany them on an initial visit if this is needed. If you work with a family that you feel may benefit from this service you can encourage them to make contact themselves or you can ring on their behalf and pass information to them. Parents are often concerned about their children's learning or behaviour.
Some enquiries are simple, one-off contacts but others are more complicated.
Parents often start with 'safe' questions like after school clubs and later raise more complex or personal issues such as support for their children's behaviour or help with domestic violence. The service has provided information to more than 70 local families and in every case so far we have identified at least one service that the parents were unaware of and which they said they would find useful. Occasionally parents ask for a service which does not exist. When a number of St Luke's parents asked for support with their children's behaviour and we found there was nothing to pass them on to, we set up our own, tailor-made parenting course. We have now run two successful courses and are starting our third this month.