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Insight - Highlighting the work
of UK organisations working with parents, young people and families.
Parents'
Week 2004 takes time for families
The fifth national Parents' Week runs from Monday October 25 to Sunday
October 31 during half-term for most of the country's schools. It involves
hundreds of support organisations around the UK, who use the week to
highlight their own work with families and bring attention to their
issues and needs.
This year's theme is Time for Families. Organisers the National Family
and Parenting Institute (NFPI) will be marking the event with new research
focusing on the way families spend time together during school holidays.
The central theme involves looking at ways to make Britain more Family
Friendly, and is linked to the NFPI's ten-year Family Friendly Campaign.
It will draw attention to the pressures that families are under, and
as well as looking at ways to tackle those pressures, will focus on
the need to celebrate the time families spend together.
The NFPI is inviting parents, carers, children and young people all
over the UK to take part in their research. Your comments will feed
into a major report being published at the end of 2004. It involves
filling in Time Diaries and completing the statement: 'If I had time
I would ...'
Many other organisations that work with families, local, regional
and national, voluntary and statutory, have plans under way for the
week. Full details will be available on the NFPI's website in the Parents'
Week section.
To take part in Parents' Week, and register to receive a Parents'
Week Time Diary, email info@nfpi.org, or register through their website
at www.nfpi.org
Biggest story event ever?
With over 13,000 tickets for StoryQuest sold within hours of becoming
available the national story telling festival looks set to be its biggest
yet.
The event, organised by The Prince of Wales Arts & Kids Foundation
and running from 30 September to 8 October, aims to excite young people
about the power and imagination that can be unleashed through stories
and storytelling.
Several events are scheduled to take place around the UK with performances
by writers such as poet Benjamin Zephaniah, storyteller Daniel Morden,
and artists / authors Cat Weatherill, Nick Hennessy, Quentin Blake
and Rolf Harris.
The National Foundation of Educational Research says children enjoy
reading less that they did five years ago (NFER December 2003).
Recent research by the National Literacy Trust shows reading for enjoyment
falls drastically from 65 per cent at 11 years old to as little as
18 per cent by the time children reach 14.
Despite the rise in the buying and borrowing of certain children's
books - such as the Harry Potter series and 'the most borrowed author'
Jacqueline Wilson books - book reading is on a downturn.
'Stories are fibs that you don't get into trouble for,' says Children's
Laureate and Patron of Arts & Kids Michael Morpurgo. 'You can do
whatever you want because it is your story. You see it in YOUR head.'
StoryQuest begins on 30 September in Belfast and culminates in an
event at the Royal Albert Hall in London on 8 October. Other events
include Cardiff, Glasgow, Norwich, Oxford and Scarborough. For more
information please go to www.storyquest.org.uk
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