Parent Support Group


Are you looking for a local parent support group?

A parent support group is a  wonderful way to make friends,  feel connected with fellow parents and share the journey of raising children together.

Are you ready to find that kind of support?

Your family may be like many today, living isolated and far away from your family of origin, disconnected from your home town or village and without  the network of help that your own parents or grandparents may have had when raising you.

Nobody,  nobody has ever before asked the nuclear family to live all by itself in a box the way we do.    With no relatives, no support, we’ve put it in an impossible situation.

Margaret Mead

So if you are not part of a group already why not organise your own Joyful Parents Circle?

We have created a special kind of parent support group called a Joyful Parents Circle and if you are willing and ready to organize your own group, we provide you with EVERYTHING you need, all the materials are given to you, to help you set up your very own circle. EASILY. To start your group you simply register as a Joyful Parents Circle organizer and Download your Joyful Parents Circle Organiser’s Pack Now!

Would you like….

  • A parent support group that can help you become the very best parent you can be?
  • A chance to connect with other parents and share the journey of parenting with them ?
  • To learn more about parenting skills – not from experts but from other parents like yourself?
  • To shift from this kind of parenting…

angry parent and sad child parent support group helps you to not be angryto this kind of parenting?Parent Support Group can help you appreciate your child

Then download your Joyful Parents Circle Pack now !

A Joyful Parents Circle is a parent support group where you can do all this and more…

So organise your own Joyful Parents Circle and invite other parents to join your circle today !

Simply put in your details below and get access your Joyful Parents Circle Organiser’s Pack – it’s available as a gift to you

The Joyful Parents circle pack is a colourful, easy to read document that contains all the materials you will need to successfully organize and run your own parent support group:

Your Parent Support Group material : Image of Joyful Parents Circle Pack (total number of pages 24)

A selection of pages from the Organiser’s Pack

Your Joyful Parents Circle – is divided into three easy parts:

  • PREPARE:  The Organiser’s Pack  takes the hard work out and makes preparation easy to do.  This pack gives you information and tips about starting a circle, how to determine what kind of circle you could run,  the aims of your circle, a list of group agreements for all your circle participants.
  • FIRST MEETING:  The Introduction Circle gives you all the information you need to run your very first meeting, it helps and support you create a wonderful group that other parents will be eager to join.
  • NEXT MEETINGS: The Topic List gives you a list of topics available to choose, a sample topic page, an explanation of how to use the topic pages and how you can order any of the specific topics listed too.

You simply need to fill in the form, register as an organiser and download the Organiser’s Pack. You can then print out and read the material and follow each step of the way as it is clearly marked. You will see how to make individual choices to design a circle that is exactly right for you.

Who can start a Joyful Parents Circle?

The topics pages are about subjects that affect all parents, so no matter what stage your child is at or what challenges you face with your child, you are invited to start a circle so it can support you in your situation and help you emerge with new thoughts and ideas of how to move forward.

Anyone who is involved in raising children can start a Joyful Parents Circle. Parents, grandparents, carers, foster parents, teachers, nursery workers – all can benefit from this material.

For example may be you are currently attending  an ante-natal class and you’d like to meet-up after your babies are born. Or it could be you are a parent of children with special needs. For example parents of children on the autistic spectrum. May be you know a group of  mums of kids in the early years.  Could be dads only. Could be home-schooling parents.  Parents of gifted children.  Or simply the local mums and dads from your neighbourhood.

And although the material is universal – touching on topics that affect parents whatever stage their children are at, you may find it easier if your own group has an age range or theme so as to have more relevance in the discussion and connections between all the parents.

And our experience is also very mixed groups of parents with children of all ages benefit from hearing and sharing with each other.

Again – it is entirely up to you who you choose to invite to the Joyful Parents Circle you organise.

Recent research shows that many parents are shy of seeking help from “official” experts such as social services, health visitors, social workers,  their local council or school teachers for fear of condemnation and judgement.  With this is mind the material is designed for parents to run the circle themselves. Download your Joyful Parents Circle Organiser’s Pack now.

Its a great opportunity and a gift you give to other parents to start a parent support group so go ahead and begin today!

What’s special about these Joyful Parents Circles?

Unlike much of the parenting advice out there at the moment, there is no “HOW TO PARENT” advice or dogma in these packs. It presents some current day research on children and development, however for the mostpart the material is organized so that you can find your own solutions and the best way for you to raise your own children. In designing the pack, we have taken the Appreciative Inquiry approach.  This says focus on what is already working and enhance that, rather than trying to keep on at looking at all the problems.  So you can use your circle for your family, to help you see what a great job you are already doing,  to celebrate the present,  to look at the positive and to face any challenges or obstacles with creative ways of changing. You and the parents in your circle  will  gain valuable self-esteem and courage to make the shifts so that your future and the future for your children looks bright.  You are in charge and you can make your circle exactly what you want it to be.

How do I begin ?

Great !  You’ve decided you want to be a Joyful Parents Circle organizer  !  Simply download the Joyful Parents Circle Organiser’s pack and follow the simple directions. You can gather one, two or however many other parents to meet up with you to form your circle. You choose your venue (could be your home or a café), decide the length of time you meet and make the circle time work for you.

A Joyful Parents Circle is flexible as to how often, how long and over what time frame you meet. There is a decision page included in the starter pack to help you arrange a circle that suits your needs and the needs of the parents who join you.

The Joyful Parents Circle Organiser’s Pack is simply designed and easily mapped out so that no prior experience of running a group is required to follow the information.

How much do the packs cost?

AMAZINGLY we have decided to GIFT the Joyful Parents Circle Packs to anyone parent who wants to become an organiser.   We are inspired by the gift economy. This means we gift you access to this material, so that you can gift something in return back to us or  onto others. This can be time, money, creativity or other gifts in kind. And if you find value in the pack, we welcome you to gift that value back to Joyful Parents. You determine the value.    Joyful Parents is a not-for-profit social enterprise so any money we do receive will help spread this work further  so more Joyful Parents material can be developed and shared.   And we don’t wish to exclude any parents from accessing the material for monetary reasons, so it is entirely up to you how you receive this gift and how you may choose to pass on the spirit of the gift to others or back to Joyful Parents.

 What’s the aim of the packs?

By supporting parents to get together, by encouraging parents to take time to pause, reflect and appreciate and what is going well in their family, the aim of Joyful Parents Circles is to support the changes and the healthy growth of family life.  There are many studies of the appreciative approach which prove that any “problems” or challenges faced with appreciation will often resolve themselves through simply changing how it is seen.  The aim of the circles is for parents to find gratitude for their children, their family and their own parenting skills.  With changes coming through focusing on strengths there will be enhanced family life, and for each happier family the overall well-being of the community in which they live will increase.

By Filling in the form below, you are registering as a Parent Circle Organizer and understand that you will take on the responsibility to organize and arrange your own parent support group.
Thank you for making a contribution towards the materials you will receive to help you set up and organize your own parent support group.