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Together for Families

Working with Churches

Together for Families

Our Together for Families programme puts dedicated staff within our children’s centres to encourage local churches in their community to work with children, young people and their families.

The teams also link parents with more specialist family support to help them with physical or mental health issues, debt, financial hardship or employment problems.

Together for Families has been made possible through dedicated resource committed by Spurgeons, alongside one-off ‘Working with People in Need’ funding from the Diocese of Peterborough. We are looking for ways to expand this work in places where it can be supported by Spurgeons services and local infrastructure.

How it works

We encourage churches to meet the needs of and serve their communities. This includes things like supporting parents to build up their confidence and encouraging young children to play, talk, sing and laugh.

We can also help churches to:

  • get groups off the ground in socially isolated areas, where the church may be the only community building

  • offer support to existing groups through extra parenting or child development sessions and activities

  • bring new resources

  • access support for group leaders and training for volunteers

  • provide a link to other services and organisations

Who to contact

Peterborough

Ruth Filsak is based at Honeyhill Children’s Centre, Paston, and covers an area to the north, east and west of the city, as well as outlying areas, from Barnack to Thorney and Eye. ‘Sing and Play’ is one of her favourite new groups making musical noise, encouraging parents to communicate through singing, rhyming and music.

East Northants

Rachael Newman is based at Oundle Children’s Centre and works with churches from Easton on the Hill and Kingscliffe down to Raunds and Irthlingborough. Our partnership with The Underground started two new Stay and Play groups in rural areas in the last year.

West Wiltshire

Ruth Brooks-Martin is based at Longfield Children’s Centre, Trowbridge, linking to parents and under-5s work across West Wiltshire.

We welcome discussions with churches or faith organisations to partner with us in their area or who might have other suggestions for how we could work together. Please contact Spurgeons Network Manager, Rachel Shackleton.

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