Parent Pathways – Can you help to set up and lead a new community interest company?

A new organisation is being set up to support parents and families and you could be involved too.

Louise Smith is passionate about supporting parents and caregivers who have experienced child-to-parent violence, social care involvement, family separation, and the isolation that can come with these experiences.

Parent Pathways has come from Louise’s own lived experience of navigating extremely difficult family circumstances, child-to-parent abuse and involvement with services. Through her own experiences, Louise has seen how incredibly isolated parents can become when family life reaches crisis point, particularly when social care and other services become involved.

Louise has experienced first-hand how difficult it can be to find someone who genuinely understands what you are going through – someone who can simply listen without judgement, understand the emotional impact and help you find a way forward. That is the reason she wants to create Parent Pathways.

Louise wants to build something that means other parents don’t have to feel as alone as she did. A place where parents can be listened to by people who understand, access peer support and practical information, be signposted towards appropriate services, and feel that their experiences matter.

Alongside direct support, Louise wants Parent Pathways to help raise awareness and understanding of child-to-parent violence and the experiences of families involved with social care. I hope that, over time, it can become a safe and supportive community built around lived experience, compassion and empowerment.

How can you help?

Louise is looking to build a small founding board and would particularly like to find people who could bring experience in areas such as:

• Safeguarding or family support
• Social care or education/SEND
• Charity or community organisations
• Finance, business or governance
• Fundraising
• Communications or campaigning
• Relevant lived experience

Louise is not expecting people to commit immediately and would like to have informal conversations with anyone who may be interested and find out whether they could be a good fit for what she is trying to build.

If you’re interested and would like to speak to Louise, contact Becky on becky@dudleycvs.org.uk and she’ll put you in touch.