Worcestershire Services
Worcestershire Early Help Hub provides support and advice for families with children aged 0 to 19, and up to 25 for those with a disability.
If you need advice or support you can refer your child directly by filling in the online form and the team will get in touch with you. Alternatively you can call them on 01905 822 666.
This is the link to the early help website http://www.worcestershire.gov.uk/cms/family-advice-and-support.aspx
Birmingham Services
http://www.sweetproject.co.uk/index.php
Who We Are - What We Do
We are a social enterprise not-for-profit venture, formed in March 2010. We work with children, families and vulnerable adults to provide protection, safeguarding, empowerment, problem-solving skills and support.
Service Users
Drop In
We offer an advisory drop in service 10.00 a.m. – 2.00 p.m. daily. Here you can receive advice about debt management, information sharing, crisis intervention, self referrals, and so on.
Children & Families
We work directly with children and families, offering a variety of support and advice to parents who are experiencing difficulties with their children’s behaviour. If you would like to talk to someone without the fear of being judged please call us 0121 458 2270.
Family Group Conferencing
Cases are referred to SWEET, who undertake an intensive intervention involving all family members in order to identify solutions to problems.
Groups For Parents Include:
Pick and Mix Parenting Group
Thursday mornings 9.30 a.m. – 12.00 p.m.
This group offers parents the chance to meet in a relaxed and safe environment to discuss any concerns they have about their children. This is a parent-led group.
Stay and Keep Safe
Thursday afternoons 1.00 p.m. – 2.30 p.m.
This is a unique approach to service users who have experienced and survived, or who are living with domestic abuse. The group will have the opportunity to consider and reflect on the impact of domestic abuse on themselves and their children. Suitable for men and women.
Coffee Morning
Friday mornings 9.30 a.m. – 12.00 p.m.
Adults
We offer a wide range of support and advice to adults in times of need including liaising with debt agencies; benefit advice and housing advice, including eviction and repossession; support with practical tasks around the home; memory box and life story work; social isolation; mental health; learning disability difficulties and older adults. We also offer transition support for younger adults and school leavers; and we run a Service Users' and Carers' Forum (see below).
Service Users' & Carers' Forum
The Forum provides training to enable service users who do not receive a service from SWEET to shape the way in which we deliver our services. This can include being part of interviewing panels for new student applications as well as induction programmes and training for student social workers.
Coffee Morning
Friday mornings 10.00 a.m. – 12.00 p.m.
A group for service users who want to socialise with other adults. Tea, coffee and biscuits are available.
Carers' Group
Monthly on Friday mornings 10.00 a.m. – 12.00 p.m. (2nd Friday of the month)
The SWEET Project Carers meet on a monthly basis for parents of children aged from birth to 18 who have additional needs.
Group Work
When all other organisations withdrew from the local area, the SWEET Project established that there was no safe environment in which any form of group work could be undertaken. Having recognised that service users within the local community had few opportunities to attend groups or to access support systems, we decided to provide group work. Our groups aim to combat social isolation and to empower service users by giving them advice and guidance and, at the same time, the opportunity to connect with and support each other. Within the organisation’s parenting groups, we provide a variety of workshops on different parenting skills, and space for a parents' forum, where members are encouraged to share their experiences and opinions with those in similar situations.
We have discovered that having the opportunity to share and be listened to can be a very therapeutic process, especially for those members who are socially isolated. Group work helps them to build self-confidence and self-esteem. With guidance from the facilitators, parents are empowered to find solutions to their problems from their own personal resources. Further group work is undertaken in a local nursing home, where a reminiscence group has been set up to enable residents to share stories and memories about their past. This is reported to have improved their emotional wellbeing significantly .