National Lottery funding boost to help parents experiencing abuse
More parents experiencing abusive behaviours from their children are set to receive support thanks to a National Lottery grant and a growing social enterprise.
PEGS has been supported by The National Lottery Community Fund over the last three years, to provide one-to-one Child to Parent Abuse (CPA) support for parental figures in specific regions, as well as virtual practitioner-led sessions nationally. Now the organisation has been successful in applying for a second grant for more than £350,000, which will help them continue this work until 2028.
The funding will be put towards one-to-one sessions for any high-risk parent in Telford & Wrekin, Shropshire, Derbyshire, South Staffordshire or Worcestershire and will see the continuation of online sessions for any UK parent which run every weekday plus two evenings a week. In addition, a new Volunteer and Training Co-ordinator will be recruited to work in local communities, delivering CPA training and helping to grow PEGS’ volunteer network.
PEGS’ founder Michelle John said: “We are delighted to have been successful in our second National Lottery grant application, with The National Lottery Community Fund recognising the positive impact our programmes have for parents who are experiencing CPA.”
“Referrals from professionals and from parents, carers and guardians have been steadily rising month on month since we launched five years ago. While it’s heartening to see more people becoming aware of the support on offer from PEGS, it’s naturally upsetting to see that the demand is so high because of the number of families affected by CPA – thought to be anywhere upwards of one in ten across the UK.”
CPA can incorporate a range of behaviours, including physical, verbal, financial, psychological and even sexual abuse, and can impact any parent or carer regardless of the age of their child (including over 18s).
As well as the work funded by the Lottery, PEGS has a closed peer support group on Facebook; runs dedicated training programmes for professionals such as social workers, teachers and police; holds an annual conference and awareness-raising day; and has its own identification tool (known as PRAM) which, once trained on it, helps professionals identify where CPA is taking place. Visit www.pegsupport.com or search PEGS Support on social media to find out more about the social enterprise.
In the last three years, The National Lottery Community Fund has funded projects in every local authority and last year, awarded over half a billion pounds of game changing grants to nearly 14,000 projects.
