Parents hit harder by more home-schooling

PARENTS across the city are finding the demands of home-schooling while working from home harder during the second lockdown. Glasgow City Parents Group (GCPG) says it has received feedback that most children have shown better resilience this time, but it is the adults who have been struggling more.

Leanne McGuire, chairperson of the GCPG, said: “Parents and carers are juggling much more this time round.

“There’s a bigger expectation to continue to work, support children’s home learning and cope with the financial pressures – add on top of that the colder weather and the feeling of lockdown never ending. With this in mind, we wanted to provide parents with some mental health support.”

GCPG is a group of parent volunteers from across Glasgow who are existing school parent council members at primary and secondary schools.

The group, which has been running for almost three years, provides support, information and training to parent council members, parents and carers to support their children’s education.

In the past 10 months, it has seen a sharp rise in engagement levels on social media channels which regularly see traffic of more than160,000 reach/ impressions on Facebook and Twitter.

In August 2020, shortly after schools returned GCPG, delivered a webinar on “Supporting the Mental Health of Young People in our schools”, presented by Barry Syme, a city principal psychologist atGlasgow Psychological Service.

The webinar detailed useful resources that could be used by schools, parents and young people.

The recording of the webinar can be found on the group’s YouTube channel, with a new webinar scheduled to take place this month.

Ms McGuire added: “Barry and his team at Glasgow Psychological Service have agreed to deliver a webinar on ways to help parents’ mental health.

“We have been fortunate that Glasgow Education and linked departments are very supportive of our group and are always willing to help or provide any resources we feel that would be beneficial to parents and carers.

“We have worked in partnership with many departments of Glasgow City Council (GCC) as well as many other organisations such as Child Poverty Action Group Scotland, Police Scotland and NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde.

“We are beginning to see more engagement from schools too, with many sharing our information to their parents. The hope is going forward that not only parents and carers but schools will also see how useful GCPG can be.”

The webinar is due to take place on Wednesday, February 17, at 7pm via Zoom. Event registration will be available on GCPG social media over the coming week.