Edinburgh Lone Fathers Project

The lone fathers project is now firmly established and is proving to be immensely popular with all the dads and children. There are so many attending the weekend outings that we have had to split the group in two, as the mini-bus is now full to capacity. In addition, project worker Jimmy Donald has been on a number of home visits offering advice, support and information to dads who are unable to attend the Saturday trips. The feedback from the dads has been wholly positive, whilst other agencies have said the project has been invaluable. The project has also benefited from regular media interest. Nursery World, The Sunday Herald and BBC Radio Scotland have all run features on the Project.

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Dundee Sitter Service

Dundee Sitter Service is now well into it's third year of operation and is proving to be a popular childcare option for families in Dundee. Childcare is provided to families in their own homes for work, education and training purposes with limited number of hours available for respite sits for families with children with special needs or under severe stress. Sitters are available 7 days a week from 7am-10.30pm which means those working shifts are able to access registered child care at times when other options are unavailable.

To date there are nearly 200 registered families of which a total of 121 have already received the Service on either a short or long-term basis. There is a waiting list which currently consists of 23 families for either work or respite sits, the others have registered without giving specified requirements in the hope of securing either employment or college places. Unfortunately, those waiting for before and after school hours are having to wait longer for these hours than those requiring care in the middle of the day, as all available staff are already allocated to long-term users for these hours.

The school holidays once again proved to be a busy time, as although we lost the majority of the student families those who were working required additional hours. For the first time we organised group activities for sitters and children one day a week, one of which was a Fire Brigade visit (pictured below). This enabled the sitters to use the office as a drop in facility every Wednesday which was beneficial for staff and children as they were able to take part in activities not generally provided in the home and to socialise with other children and staff.

These activity days will probably now become a standard part of our programme for each summer. Interest has been generated nationally as more and more people are becoming aware of sitter services as a childcare option. In the last few weeks there have been 21 requests for additional information from all parts of the country from Devon to the Highlands. If this interest is maintained there will be a large number of similar services springing up in the not too distant future modelled on the Dundee project established by One Parent Families Scotland.

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Maddiston Family Centre

This has been a period of transition for both the users of the service and staff of the Centre. As we prepared to say goodbye to the children who were moving on to their great adventure in life, we were also planning and preparing for the next intake of children.

We had an end of term trip to Lochore Country Park for 29 two- to three-year olds and it was a wonderful day for all of us. Each child received a gift of a teddy bear to mark the occasion (which they snuggled into on the journey home and promptly fell asleep!).

Perhaps transformation rather than transition has been going on within the Centre itself. Thanks to the Council's decision to fit us out with new windows, we found ourselves redecorating most of the rooms which, given our budget, really meant all hands reporting for duty with painting gear.

A donation of £500 from Tom Gardiner, our local friendly bobby, has gone towards replacing our fence which was in sad disrepair. We have also had new signs on the building depicting our new 'logo' which incorporates the old house logo, giving it a younger, fresher and livelier look (see below).

There is now some semblance of order emerging from the chaos, clutter and smells of paint and cleaning materials. With the clearance is the dawning knowledge of the need to produce the Annual Report, plan the Annual General Meeting and welcome new parents and children to the next term. But we still have the playscheme to get through first - whatever happened to the summer holidays!

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Dundee Project

The last few months in Dundee have seen the beginning of several new initiatives thanks to funding from Lloyds TSB, SIPS funding and the Scottish Comunity Foundation. A pilot group for parents to discuss their reservations about discussing sexual health, contraception and relationships with their children has run its course and has been declared a resounding success by parents. This group work will be delivered throughout Dundee during the course of the following year. A group for young people will also be formed and encourage, hopefully, the idea of peer education.

Following on our success in providing creche workers in over fifty different agencies throughout Dundee we have got together with Dundee Sitters and the Under 12s Project to submit a consortium bid to the Lottery Board developing the creche work and providing respite care for children with special needs. Provision for a toy library has also been included. If successful it will form the basis of future development work for the project.

A new venture over the summer months has been the addition of a residential caravan situated on a site near Carnoustie. This has been given to this project from a local tenants group who had obtained lottery funding to purchase it and pay site fees, but found that the practicalities of letting it out proved more difficult than at first anticipated. We have managed to fill it over the holidays with lone parent and low income families.

This venture will be monitored and evaluated at the end of the season and decisions will be made as to whether the caravan will be handed over completely to the project. Thanks for the success of this venture must go to staff members, particularly Caroline and Teresa who have put a lot of work and effort into ensuring everything runs smoothly.

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