Using a strengths-based approach provides rich opportunities for volunteers to feed their ideas and local knowledge into your programme. Parents supported can also contribute their strengths and skills and suggest new or different ways of doing things.
Collect feedback and ideas formally and informally, then have staff and supervisors review them. It is important to act on what they say e.g. adapting publicity, introducing new group activities, setting up exercise sessions for pregnant women, or adapting community outreach venues etc.
Example: Workshops for expectant fathers (Essex Pregnancy Pal and Birth Buddy programme)
We explored the views of local fathers using questionnaires and by jotting down their views whenever we met them during outreach activities and home visits.
Responses included wanting to feel more included and to have somewhere to go to meet other expectant fathers:
‘Dads only’ workshops were recommended, so we piloted new workshops for expectant fathers. We researched their views further, designing the content, testing out different recruitment methods, then reshaping and adapting the workshops according to ‘what worked’.
Attendance was slow to start off with, so we invited their partners to the first session and cut down the number of sessions. This definitely helped and feedback has been overwhelmingly positive: