Our FARE Family Liaison Team provide a link between the school and your family, supporting your young people to overcome any barriers to learning and opportunities. We are here to provide support to parents and carers, and to help with any issues that you may have in relation to supporting your children, both at home and in school. We are working to increase parental involvement within school and to encourage families to learn and work together. We are able to provide qualifications, new skills and to signpost to agencies that will be able to provide you with the support you and your family needs. If you have a personal concern or school related issue, then we are here as to listen to you. Any query, large or small, that you may require assistance with, we are here to help.

Parent and Family Learning Opportunities

The Family Liaison Team at St Mungo's Academy offer a wide range of courses and information sessions that can help you and your family to learn new skills. You can attend any sessions you would be interested in – we do have limited space in each session but will be able to run further session if there is a high demand for them. We can also provide some childcare if that would make it easier for you to attend any sessions. Please below for the current opportunities we can offer:

• Healthy Minds, Healthy Families: Information sessions for parent/carers on mental health issues for children and young people.
• Healthy Meals, Healthy Families: 8 Family Learning sessions where families can come together and learn to cook healthy, delicious meals
• Emergency First Aid at Work: A 6 week course to gain an SCQF certificate in Emergency First Aid
• Food Hygiene: A two day course to get a recognised food hygiene certificate (26th and 29th April, 1pm - 4pm)
• Numeracy: A 4 week course to get an SCQF certificate in Numeracy and improve your maths skills
• Manual Handling (Moving and handling objects safely and appropriately): A 2 week course to gain an SCQF certificate in Manual Handling
• Health and Safety at Work: A 4 week course to get an SCQF certificate in Health and Safety at Work
• Fire Safety: A 4 week course to get an SCQF certificate in Fire Safety
• SQA Employability Unit (Starting after Easter Break): Build your confidence and gain an employability qualification
• English For Speakers of Other Languages: Get a qualification and improve your English language skills
• Volunteering Opportunities: During the Easter and summer holidays the Family Liaison Team will be running holiday programmes where the young people will take part in lots of activities and trips. We are looking for parents and carers to volunteer at these programmes. Perfect for anyone looking for experience working with young people!

If you would be interested in attending any of these sessions, please contact our colleagues at FARE on 0141 582 0260, option 3.

St Mungo's Academy has a diverse community from many different countries around the world. We recognise that many parents who are new to Scotland are still developing their English skills and need support in doing so. The Inclusion Team support English as an Additional Language (EAL) parents with Stephanie Hayes@FARE Scotland who helps assist parents to access ESOL (English as a Second and Other Language) programmes. These programmes are run within the local area in community centres and some colleges. ESOL courses are for learners whose first language is not English. Learners develop their reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills in the English language, and also their knowledge of language.

You can join this confidence-building course, gain SCQF rated qualifications, access funded training, access financial advice support, CV and interview skills, and also find out more about employment or volunteering.

If you are interested in any of these Family Support Services please contact Stephanie on 078882021841 or email stephanie.hayes@fare-scotland.org, or contact Paula Barrett or Claire Thompson , Family Liaison Officers here at St Mungo's on 0141 582 0260 (opt 3).

Dyslexia is a learning difficulty which primarily affects reading and writing skills. However, it does not only affect these skills. Dyslexia is actually about information processing. Dyslexic people may have difficulty processing and remembering information they see and hear, which can affect learning and the acquisition of literacy skills. Dyslexia can also impact on other areas such as organisational skills. If you learn how to deal with dyslexia it is possible to be as successful as anyone without dyslexia. Many of the most famous scientists, business people or actors also have dyslexia.

It is important to remember that there are positives to thinking differently. Many dyslexic people show strengths in areas such as reasoning, in visual and creative fields. Pablo Picasso and John Lennon had dyslexia. For the young folk reading this, so do Noel Gallagher and Adam Levine from Maroon 5. For the even younger, so too does Tom Holland (Spiderman)!

We have over 55 families that we support through our dyslexia support group although there are more in our school community who would benefit from this. We work closely with our school Support for Learning Department who support our dyslexic learners individually. 

We also have a WhatsApp group and hold open forums regularly for parents to talk freely and ask for advice or support from each other. Speakers from outside organisations and charities work with parents to help them understand the implications of dyslexia and workshops are provided so they are knowledgeable in how to access the tools on their childs iPad in order to support them to work at home.

We also prepare the young person after they have been assessed for dyslexia by holding workshops and drop in sessions for them each month with sessions every 2nd week, alternating during lunch and afterschool.

Mental Health Issues are becoming an increasing problem for all us, not just our young people. Thankfully we have become more skilled at identifying this and more open about discussing mental health issues. The Covid pandemic brought this even more to the fore as we all struggled through this in different ways.

This group supports working with all the families of St Mungo’s (over 940 families) with regards to supporting positive mental health and well-being.  Many families of St Mungo’s Academy are aware of the support that is offered by the Family Liaison team but we recognise that many more could benefit from this. We can support families with mental health issues that they or their children are facing, either directly or by signposting them to other agencies who may help.

The increasing cost of living crisis is also a major issue and many of us are struggling with increasing food and fuel bills. This creates a great deal of stress which many of us do not like to admit to or will hide from our children for fear of causing stress. Everyone in St Mungo's is highly aware of the stress this is causing many of our families and whether you just need someone to listen to your worries or need help in accessing food vouchers, clothing bank items or fuel assistance, please consider contacting us.

Jen McAllister from Parent Network Scotland also works closely with us to run well-being sessions for parents. Jen runs free weekly sessions on mental health and well-being online, usually over a 6-10 week period. PNS uses a combination of peer-led methods with trained parents who lead groups through network meetings. Having groups led by parents in the community...

• Improves the scope and scale of help available to parents and families
• Offers a greater credibility and influence with other parents in local communities
• Builds community capacity and resilience through our parent networks
• Improves parent facilitators’ confidence, qualifications, and employability.

If you are interested in these opportunities please email Jen mentioning St Mungo's Academy - jenm@pns.org.uk

We can also help you access local community activities through the East Centre, Calton & Dennistoun Hubcap who inform us of activities and events that are happening throughout our community. 

Our ADHD and ASD family support group is well-established and engages with over 32 families. To support this we have a WhatsApp group where we share vital information for their young people and it is a group where parents seek advice and ask for support from each other.  We hold get-togethers every few months to catch up, share experiences and talk through issues that you may face on a daily basis. We also liaise with the Autism Society and update our families with information on activities that are available in the community.

Here is a list of organisations that you can contact if you need support or advice:-

The Autism Society - billy.docherty@nas.org.uk and Patsy.Devlin@nas.org.uk

ADHD Support group – adhdglasgow.org

Eastend Carers Support group – 0141 764 0550 (option 3 for The Hub)

North East Carers Support Group- Caroline Prentice 

Education and Information Worker

Glasgow North East Carers Centre

51 Trondra Place

Glasgow

G34 9AX

Tel: 0141 781 0728 Mob: 07484 064217

Parents need to be registered for this support but the criteria is simple; they have a young person who has a formal diagnosis of ADHD, ASD or Aspergers. The North East Carers Support Group can also access funding and training courses for parents or siblings.

Self-harming is increasingly a concern for our young people and it is important to know how to deal with this issue in a safe way. When school staff are alerted to a concern over self-harm or risk-taking behaviour we can have 'safe-talks' with the young people initially but we also incorporate talks with parents at separate times to discuss their young person and what they can do to help them through this. It is often difficult for a parent to know how to respond to a child who is in this position and from experience we know that some parents feel helpless and unable to cope. Parents report feeling extremely frustrated or distressed when hearing their child is putting themselves at risk by harming themselves.

Self-harm is intentional behaviour that is considered harmful to oneself. This is most commonly regarded as direct injury of one's own skin tissues usually without a suicidal intention. Other terms such as cutting, self-injury, and self-mutilation have been used for any self-harming behaviour regardless of suicidal intent. The most common form of self-harm is using a sharp object to cut the skin. Other forms include scratching, hitting, or burning body parts. While earlier usage included interfering with wound healing, excessive skin-picking, hair-pulling, and the ingestion of toxins, current usage distinguishes these behaviours from self-harm.

This support groups invites parents together to give advice on how to handle this type of issue with their child, where to go to for advice and how to speak to their child. This support group helps parents develop the skills to help their children and help themselves by knowing how to respond in what can be an incredibly stressful situation.

Seasons for Growth here at St Mungo's Academy provides an opportunity for parents to better understand the experience of death, separation, divorce and bereavement from a child’s perspective and to explore ideas and strategies that they may wish to consider as they support their young persons transition through family change.  Change affects everyone differently, as does grief. It is the impact of the change, not the event itself that Seasons for Growth focus on.

Seasons for Growth has been helping children, young people and adults across Scotland since 2001. In the year leading up to the pandemic over 7,000  children and adults attended groups.

Research published in  Educational Psychology in Scotland, Winter 2017 looked at the impact of the programme.

The study, which included 75 pupil participants, identified many positive outcomes including:

• highly significant improvements reported by pupils, parents and teachers in all health and well-being measures
• teachers reported young people able to concentrate more on their learning
• parents / carers reported children being less angry, calmer, happier, more able to concentrate, and making more effort with homework.
• pupils reported an increased sense of belonging and connectedness, emotional literacy, concentration, confidence and relationships. They also said they had fun!

Seasons for Growth is delivered in 2 separate components:

• Supporting your child following separation and divorce
• Supporting your child following the death of someone they love.

This is delivered through 1x4 hour or 2x2 hour sessions with a small group of 5-10 parents by a trained companion.

These sessions can be held within the school environment or within the community where you reside, with the sessions facilitated by Paula Barrett and other trained staff.

Our Warm Hub is set up within the school to provide a safe space for the parents to talk about any issues that they are experiencing and what they feel would benefit their children within the school. Sometimes parents find it easier to contact the Inclusion Team and this helps to alleviate any stress they may feel waiting for extremely busy Pastoral Care staff to call back. The Inclusion Team are often in a position to respond more quickly or will pass on information to the Pastoral Care Team who they work closely with. Queries that we have dealt with at these sessions include:-

• tracking reports
• language barriers
• bullying
• homework
• school routines
• bereavement
• general health and well-being

If you are interested in visiting The Warm Hub please contact our colleagues at FARE on 0141 582 0260, option 3.