Welcome to East Riding of Yorkshire Council’s support page for families and practitioners.
Managing Christmas
Why Christmas can be a difficult time
You might be struggling this year for the first time. Or you may have found Christmas difficult in the past, and so you’re dreading it.
You may also enjoy Christmas, but feel that you can’t celebrate it how you’d like.
It’s a tricky time for many relationships with lots of different demands.
Managing relationships after a breakup
Many of the dates that are important to us involve family celebrations. When relationships break down, it can be really hard to manage these occasions.
Plan Ahead – when there are children involved, arrange to meet without them present.
Negotiate – it’s not about winning or whose ‘turn’ it is. Listen, discuss and agree a plan with a focus on what the children would want.
Let everyone know in advance
Try to build new traditions rather than focus on losing old ones – this can be a positive experience.
Look after yourself – think about and plan for your own needs at this time.
We understand that conflict can be part of all relationships, and this is completely normal. It’s not the conflict that is the problem but how we deal with it. Evidence shows that ongoing, poorly resolved conflict can have a damaging effect on our own relationships but more importantly on our children’s wellbeing and happiness. This page provides tips and support local to you.
If you need more information or support, visit our Family Help website, which provides guidance and services for families with children from pregnancy up to age 19 (or 25 with special educational needs).
Parents & Families
We understand that everyone is facing additional financial pressures at the moment, and this might be impacting on your family relationships. For more help – Cost of living – help for households (eastriding.gov.uk)
Urgent help/Worried about a child
If you’re worried about a young person or think they might be at risk of harm, abuse, or neglect, you can contact East Riding’s Safeguarding and Partnership Hub (SAPH) to log your concern and receive advice.
Tel: (01482) 395500
Domestic Abuse
Parental conflict is not the same as domestic abuse – If you are afraid or feeling fearful within a relationship then this is more likely to be domestic abuse, please seek help.
East Riding of Yorkshire DVAP Tel: 01482 396330 & 396368
Amity – Little Book of Relationship Care
This is a relationship guide created by the experts at Amity to help you think about the relationships in your life and provide tips if you are facing conflict or times of stress.
Click here to download the guide.
New Parents
Antenatal Classes
East Riding Children’s Centres, in partnership with Midwifery and the ISPHNS service are currently offering Antenatal Parent Education to expectant parents who are around 28 weeks pregnant.
Find out all about looking after yourself and your baby in the early days, as well as receiving information and guidance on safer sleep, infant feeding, bathing your baby and car seat safety. Face to face and virtual classes are available.
Mental Health
Looking after your mental health and emotional wellbeing is important at every stage of life. Whether you’re navigating everyday challenges, adapting to life after a baby, or working on communication with your partner, support is available.
Looking after your emotional wellbeing | Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust (hey.nhs.uk)
General advice and local support to help maintain positive mental health and emotional wellbeing.
Relationships after having a baby – NHS (www.nhs.uk
Support and guidance on managing relationship changes after becoming a parent.
Tips on improving communication and strengthening your relationship during parenthood.
East Riding Children’s Centres are here for the whole family from the moment you know you are expecting a baby up to age 9. The East Riding has 18 Children’s Centres that offer a range of activities and services for children and their families to give every child the best start in life.
Health Visitors
Health Visitors are qualified specialist community public health nurses (SCPHN – HV).
Their additional training in public health enables them to assess the health needs of individuals, families and the wider community to effectively promote good health and prevent illness.
Our knowledgeable Health Visitors and health and development practitioners, work with children from birth to five years of age and their families.
Health Visitors play a crucial role in ensuring children have the best possible start in life, and lead delivery of the Healthy Child Programme (HCP).
Family Support
Family support practitioners can work with you and your family when you need a bit of help to get back on track. Their role is to help find out what works best for your family by developing trusting relationships and identifying what support you need to make a change.
More information can be found: Family Help (eastriding.gov.uk)
OR you can phone (01482) 391700 Early help practitioners are available Monday to Friday 9am – 4pm.
OR email
Please complete a request for service form and send to your nearest community hub.
EHP Request for Service Form:
https://www.eastriding.gov.uk/download/easysite-asset-781370/
East Riding – Email: ehphub@eastriding.gov.uk
Free online parenting guides for East Riding families
Parents and carers in the East Riding can access free online learning to help navigate parenting challenges.
The well-established Solihull Approach guides have been adopted by East Riding of Yorkshire Council to support families.
The online guides aim to help parents better understand their child’s feelings and behaviour and to help parents with resilience, knowledge, and confidence for all stages of parenting. They are tailored to various stages of a child or young person’s development and aim to help family members with reflective, supportive learning, without judgement. Parents and carers will learn about child brain development, challenging behaviour and communication.
There’s a specific section for teenagers, helping them to make sense of brain changes during adolescence and what it means for how they feel, make decisions, and connect in relationships.
www.eastriding.gov.uk/living/children-and-families/free-online-learning-for-parents-and-carers/
FISH – Families’ Information Service Hub
Use the link to access FISH and explore the family directory of services and support across East Riding.
It includes –
Information on childcare options and funding
Children’s centres information
Support for SEND
Activities for young people
The Families’ Information Service Hub (FISH) (eastriding.gov.uk)
Between Us App (Free)
Between Us is an app designed to help people have a better relationship with their partner. It has been created by Tavistock Relationships, an organisation based in London, UK, which has been helping couples for more than 70 years.
The app provides individuals and couples with a range of exercises, tips, videos and information so that they can better understand what’s going wrong in their relationship and do something about it.
Allows you to better understand what’s going wrong in your relationship and do something about it.
Between Us on the App Store (apple.com)
Baby Buddy App (Free)
Baby Buddy is a multi-award-winning pregnancy and parenting app for mums and dads.
Baby Buddy gives you trusted information and ideas for pregnancy, birth and your baby’s first year. It is embedded within maternity care pathways at48NHS sitesnationwide.
Baby Buddy is based on the latest research, expert advice and parents’ experiences and helps you to:
- Look after your physical and mental health
- Understand the maternity care system and your choices
- Understand and look after your baby
- Build your confidence as a parent
Have fun with your baby!
Go to Baby Buddy to find out more
ISPHNS (Integrated Specialist Public Health Nursing Service)
The Integrated Specialist Public Health Nursing Service (ISPHNS) supports families from 0 – 19 (or 25 years with SEND) They offer every family a programme of screening tests, immunisations, developmental reviews, and information and guidance to support parenting and healthy choices.
East Riding Health Visitors and School Nurses | ISPHNS (humberisphn.nhs.uk)
SEND
Support and services available for young people with SEND and their families:
SENDIASS
Support and services available for young people with SEND and their families:
Home (eastridingsendiass.org.uk)
Phone: (01482) 396469
Email: sendiass@eastriding.gov.uk
Text: 07507310273
Tweet: @SendiassERYC
For Professionals
Please contact your nearest children’s centre for training and advice
For more information visit eastriding.gov.uk/childrens-centres
What is RPC?
The impact of parental conflict on children – YouTube
Reducing parental conflict: why it matters to children and why it matters to services – YouTube
Definition from the DWP:
Conflict between parents is normal, but if exposure is frequent, intense, and poorly resolved, this can have a damaging impact on children, resulting in long-term mental health issues and emotional, social, behavioural, and academic problems as they grow up. There is growing understanding and awareness of the need to address and reduce parental conflict that sits below domestic abuse. Conflict between parents, rather than the event of parental separation or divorce, is a key factor in explaining why some children fare better than others when parental relationships break down.
ACES
Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) – YouTube
Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are “highly stressful, and potentially traumatic, events or situations that occur during childhood and/or adolescence. They can be a single event, or prolonged threats to, and breaches of, the young person’s safety, security, trust, or bodily integrity.” (Young Minds, 2018).
Examples of ACEs:
- Physical abuse
- Sexual abuse
- Emotional abuse
- Living with someone who abused drugs
- Living with someone who abused alcohol
- Exposure to domestic violence
- Living with someone who has gone to prison
- Living with someone with serious mental illness
- Losing a parent through divorce, death, or abandonment
Parental Conflict or Domestic Abuse?
Where there is domestic abuse there will be an imbalance of power and one parent may feel fearful of the other. The RPC programme is aimed at conflict below the threshold of domestic abuse.
The Parental Relationships Spectrum is a tool to help you understand whether a relationship is healthy, has conflict or is abusive.
If you are concerned that there may be abuse within a relationship, contact DVAP for further guidance:
DVAP Tel: 01482 396330 & 396368
www.eastriding.gov.uk/domesticabuse
Further reading –
Toolkit & Resources
Amity Toolkit
East Riding of Yorkshire Council have teamed up with Amity and will be using this toolkit as the basis for all our RPC work to support families. The toolkit has been designed to support practitioners who have completed the RPC workshop and training and provides all the resources you need to get started with supporting families. Please ensure you have completed the training prior to using.
Race Equality Foundation Toolkit
Parental conflict toolkit (raceequalityfoundation.org.uk)
CAFCASS
Other Resources
I Statements – DOWNLOAD
Thoughts & Feelings – DOWNLOAD
GETTING ON BETTER CARDS (One Plus One) – DOWNLOAD
GETTING IT RIGHT FOR CHILDREN CARDS (One Plus One) – DOWNLOAD
One Plus One
East Riding have subscribed to One Plus One to offer free online courses to support families. This can be self-directed or worked through with you as a trusted professional. The 3 courses are:
Arguing better – for anyone looking to learn how to cope better with stress and deal with arguments in a healthy way.
Me, You and Baby Too – to help new and expectant parents navigate the changes that happen in their relationship when a baby arrives.
Getting it right for children – to help separated or separating parents learn to manage conflict and minimise the impact it has on their children.
There’s also some helpful advice about the impact of debt on relationships.
https://www.oneplusone.org.uk/practitioners
This is for practitioners only. It includes detailed guides to the three main interventions, plus extra material to support you with engaging parents.
Working with separated/co-parents
For Parents – Voices in The Middle – For Young People When Parents Split Up
FURTHER SUPPORT COMING SOON
Useful Links & websites
Home | Early Intervention Foundation (eif.org.uk)
Between Us App (betweenus-app.com)
Training opportunities
Early Trauma Online Learning
A free 50-minute online course funded by the Home Office early Intervention Fund. Suitable for practitioners, professionals and volunteers who work with children, young people and their families.
East Riding’s bespoke RPC training offer – Coming soon (2025)
