Parenting at the Coalface: Finding Hope and Help Through Peer Support

Sharing our experiences, struggles and challenges as a parent with someone who offers a listening ear without doubt is a good thing. To feel listened to and to receive a compassionate response can be really helpful and certainly it’s much better than the alternative where many parents of children with complex needs and behaviours experience disbelief or worst still, blame. 

In this blog Al Coates MBE, talks about peer support explaining what a lifeline it can be as a parent when your child’s complex needs mean day to day parenting challenges are enormous.  Al is a former foster carers and adoptive parent to 6.  He is building a community of support for parents alongside Beacon Family Services.  

Peer support is ‘next level’ support, to sit with someone who is not only willing to listen but has walked the same path and has direct experience of living through and in the same circumstances has benefits.  

On the most basic level there’s a shared understanding, I don’t have to convince you of my experience, you know because you have had that experience or similar. In the area of managing complex and challenging behaviour in our we often find ourselves living in a parallel world. Raising kids is normal but we find ourselves outside of the normal paths, on the outside of normal conversations with other parents and often the normal experiences that families participate in.  

To talk to someone who has lived outside of the norms like you immediately affirms you, they don’t have to say it but it’s a clear communication of ‘you are not alone, you are not going mad’. With isolation being so common for parents and carers of children with challenging behaviour peer support can offer an immediate antidote. So often families are bombarded with advice and guidance, some of the best support I’ve ever had has been a listening ear from a dad who has walked the same path. There were no words of wisdom or deep insights to solve the challenges but a nod and a sigh communicated more than words could ever do in that moment.  

Within the community of your peers there will be a rich vein of knowledge, people who are ahead of you in their journey. They know who to speak to, what website to look at, the names of professionals who can help or local services that are helpful (and those that aren’t!). Invaluable knowledge that is born out of direct experience.  

“Better the wound of a friend than the kiss of an enemy”

Caring  for children with complex behaviour is hard. Very hard, and the reality is that many families struggle and sometimes in trying to care our responses and approaches stray from ideal. Being told that isn’t comfortable to put it mildly but when you know that the person delivering that message knows the pressures and impact of challenging behaviour it’s a much more palatable message.

Peer support is not a one way street, we come looking for help but leave having helped as well. The benefits to our self esteem as we share our knowledge or listen to someone who needs to be listened to.  

 There are lots of aspects of peer support to unpick and this isn’t an exhaustive list but I would be doing the topic a disservice if I didn’t mention humour. Laughing at ourselves and the sometimes extreme behaviour, with the benefit of hindsight, can be a tonic. No one is going to judge and nobody will be shocked when you tell the story that would terrify someone who hasn’t walked in your shoes. I’ve never laughed so hard as I have amidst my peers, friends, who live with similar challenges. 

 At Beacon Family Services we want to help build strong and safe peer support communities. As a team we may not have all walked the same path but we can facilitate, train and support communities that can offer unique insights to the everyday lives of the families they are from and build scaffolding around one another to promote the welfare of children and families and affect positive change in their lives.  

You can read more about the Parent Connect Project here.  

Al Coates MBE is a Social Worker, Practice Educator and an Advanced Non Violent Resistance Practitioner. He has co published several books on the issue of
Childhood Challenging Violent & Aggressive Behaviour and trained parents/carers and professionals. Al is also a former foster carer an is a parent to six adopted
children.