As a dissemination event for the Parenting+ project, and to promote the Expecting.app and Growing.app applications produced during the project, we held a whole day event in Budapest.
The event was in two parts. In the morning, we offered workshops primarily for parents of young children. The themes addressed were ones relevant to the project and the life of parents with young children, and aimed to both promote the project results (the two applications and the training curriculum for professionals in the field of parent support), as well as to offer practical and useful tips and guidance about common parenting challenges.
In the afternoon, the workshops were addressed to professionals (nursery teachers, nurses, kindergarten teachers, teachers, baby wearing and breastfeeding consultants etc.) and offered thematics relevant to their work. There was also a round table discussion with interactive playback theatre integrated into it at the end of the day.
In alignment with our organisation’s policy to include discussion and thinking around themes of social diversity and anti-racism in our programmes, we offered a workshop specifically about this theme.
As for direct promotion of the applications, the Parenting+ project and the Erasmus+ project, we included the following blocks in the programme:
- at the beginning of the day, there was a short welcome speech with a short presentation about the Parenting+ project.
- the presentation was repeated at the beginning of the round table discussion
- at the beginning of each workshop, a short description of the Parenting+ project and the applications were read out to all workshop participants
The rationale behind dividing the day in two part was that we wanted to reach different target groups. It was important for us that both parents themselves, as well as professionals working with parents hear about our work and the applications. After some consideration, we saw that their needs are different and so designed our event accordingly.
The workshops were offered both by colleagues of our organisation and outside experts (as well as an expert who was involved in the P+ training), to reach through a wider network and create collaborations for the future.
There were 61 participants at the event who signed the sign-up sheet, but in reality there were app. 75 people attending. The feedback about the event was very very positive, and it highlighted the need for similar programmes.
