The National Parenting Initiative

Letter reccomending NPI: Click Here

Over the last couple of years the senior denominational leaders have met, under the umbrella of Churches Together in Greater Bristol, to share and pray together over some of the priorities and opportunities for the Church across the wider Bristol region. One of the opportunities that has come to the fore is the National Parenting Initiative (NPI).
We would like to recommend it to you.

In January 2012, over 200 people gathered at Holy Trinity Brompton in London to launch the National Parenting Initiative (NPI), chaired by Ken Costa, to church leaders. The issue of parenting had recently come to the forefront of the UK media with events such as the riots over the summer and the Children’s Society’s ‘Good Childhood report’. Commentary from national newspapers linked the riots to England having the "worst record in family breakdown in Europe" while in his foreword to the report the Archbishop of York described the discovery of 500,000 unhappy children as “a wake-up call to us all”.

We long to see the transformation of Bristol and believe that parenting courses are a key tool to help rebuild that vital unit in society, the family. In Malachi 4 God speaks of His desire to “turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers”. These parenting courses can significantly impact our society by giving parents the confidence to pass on good values to their children and the practical tools to improve and strengthen family life.

The vision of the National Parenting Initiative is that any parent in the UK will be able to enter their postcode on the NPI website and find a parenting course near them. The goal is to encourage parenting courses to be run by churches everywhere in the British Isles and to make it easy for parents to access them. All courses offered on the website are open to parents or carers of any faith or none. The four courses offered on the website are Family Caring Trust, Care for the Family, Relationship Central and Family Time. They are all excellent – the question is which course suits the demographic of your church and community. They can be run in homes, church halls or other venues. Churches are not restricted to using the four providers named above.

The NPI is very keen to have all parenting courses churches run registered on the website, so if you have not yet done so and are running a course, please could you register it, by clicking here. Support in getting started or with registering with the National Parenting Initiative here in the Bristol region, is available through Jane Auld, who can meet church leadership groups, minsters' forums, ecumenical forums and so on. To find out more please contact her on jane a_t thenpi d_o_t org d_o_t uk

Bishop Renford Brown: Chair, Bristol Black Churches Council)
Rev Nigel Coles: Senior Regional Minister, West of England Baptist Association
Majors Ian and Jean Harris: Divisional Commander, South Western Division, Salvation Army
Revd Dr David Hart: Circuit Superintendent Minister, Bristol and South Gloucestershire, Methodist Circuit
The Rt Revd Mike Hill: Bishop of Bristol, Diocese of Bristol
The Rt Revd Declan Lang, Bishop of Clifton, Clifton Diocese
Major Ian Mountford, Chair, Churches Together in Greater Bristol (CTGB)
Rob Scott-Cook: Celebration Network of churches and Woodlands Group of churches
Revd Ruth Whitehead: Moderator, South Western Synod, URC