Aspirations should start early
Last updated 15:40, Wednesday, 12 November 2008
INSPIRING aspirations in future generations was the theme of Howgill Family Centre’s annual general meeting.
Held at Whitehaven Civic Hall, the guest speaker was Chris Carr, vice-chancellor of the University of Cumbria, who discussed the more accessible approaches to higher education.
In his talk he said that it was important to start early in raising the aspirations for the area’s children and to provide vocational courses which would tempt young people into “lifting their sights’’ into working towards degrees.
Professor Carr was also in favour of making universities less “elitist’’ saying that just because parents didn’t have any personal knowledge of college life “doesn’t mean they have any less hopes and aspirations for their children.’’
There was also a talk by Dominic Weston, of the Positive Parenting Programme, a system now operating in the area which aims to offer strategies for any aspects of parenting, from controlling temper tantrums to more serious issues.
Ann Chambers, deputy chief executive of Howgill, said: “The proceedings were rather different this year thanks to a grant from Skills for Care that allowed the event to be used to showcase examples of good practice that currently takes place throughout the Whitehaven and Copeland gentral cluster of children’s centres that Howgill leads.’’
Throughout the day, Howgill Family Centre staff were on hand with displays and information about the activities they lead. These included Family Support, Early Years, toy library, Bereavement Support, arts, therapeutic work, baby-signing, Story-sacks, portage for children with special needs, Howgill’s Boys’ Group and much more.
Members of Howgill’s Girls’ Group were also presented with certificates, marking their successful completion of a Bikeability Award, by Susan Baggot, chair of the Francis Scott Trust.
