Parent Carer Peer Support training course

Please find below the commitments and eligibility criteria overview for services and parents and carers.

• You are a parent or carer who has lived experience of supporting a child or children experiencing mental health difficulties.
• You will discuss your support needs with your service lead and course tutor prior to the start of the course so that reasonable adjustments can be made as appropriate.
• You commit to attending the induction sessions and seven half-days online, attending monthly supervision sessions, taking part in 30 hours of self-directed learning and completing a self-reflective portfolio.
• You are volunteering or working within a children and young people’s mental health service (or are looking to do so); you plan to continue or start providing support to other parents and carers supporting loved ones experiencing mental health difficulties when you have completed the course
• You have provided a brief written or spoken supporting statement providing evidence of your lived experience as a parent or carer of a child with mental health difficulties, why you want to do this course and how you will use the training.

To help you to prepare for and structure your responses to your application, below we have provided you with a copy of the grant application questions.

• You will support the parent or carer throughout their training journey and beyond to continue to develop parent carer peer support services
• You will attend one of our service lead meetings to ensure you understand the needs of your PCPS learner
• You will administer and use the £3305 grant to support the PCPS to participate in the training and to acquire experience of supporting parents and carers. This might include salary costs, backfill, expenses, purchasing resources, and/or IT equipment, buying in supervision if not available in service or in partnership with another service. The grant should be allocated in discussion with the PCPS trainee
• You will nominate a CYPMH professional supervisor to undertake a half-day supervision training day prior to providing supervision.  If you have two people providing supervision e.g., a clinician and a line manager, they are both welcome to join.
• You will participate in training evaluation and grant monitoring processes (detailing how the grant instalments are utilised to support the learner and to embed the PCPS worker role with your service)
• You are a UK children and/or young people’s mental health service provider with the statutory (e.g. NHS or local authority) or voluntary and community sector (VCS) and you offer, or are planning to offer, parent carer peer support.
• You have all relevant organisational practices in place including insurance, safeguarding policies and financial management.

To help you to prepare for and structure your responses to your application, below we have provided you with a copy of the grant application questions.

We include a ‘kick off’ session for service managers/leads as a mandatory part of the training course. This will be an opportunity to discuss what your learners and supervisors will need as they undergo the training as well as explore together what changes you may need to make to your services to enable this new workforce to thrive. You will be asked to select a date when you apply for the course, and this meeting must be attended by someone in a position to make any changes required in the service.

PCPS workers require supervision during and after their training whilst undertaking the PCPSW role. Our briefing for services and commissioners sets out the role, and what sort of supervision and clinical support should be in place.