Senior Trainer Fred Ehresmann Reflects on 17 Years with Parents Plus

17 years since his first interaction with Parents Plus, Senior Trainer Fred Ehresmann reflects on his relationship with the charity, what makes Parents Plus parenting programmes different, and why he still finds his work with us so fulfilling to this day.

 

 

Who’d Have Thought? Reflection on a 17 Year Relationship with Parents Plus

It’s 2008 and I’ve finally landed my dream job as a Parenting Consultant setting up a Parenting Service for a local authority in the UK.  I have a limited budget, three practitioners, and licence to be as creative as I like within those rather limited resources.  Given that my team is limited to three, I’ve already decided that offering parents a group-based service is the best way to maximize capacity in the face of almost overwhelming demand. 

For those in the know, the marketplace for evidence-based parenting courses tends to be dominated by large, very well-known providers with the resources to research and roll out their courses at scale on the international stage.  But none of them seemed to have the special ingredient that I was looking for – a solution-focused approach to working with parents.  So, I consulted with my professional network and the same name came up every time, I should contact John Sharry at the charity, Parents Plus.  Little did I know that this initial phone call with John was the beginning of a journey that was to change my identity and practice as a Specialist CAMHS clinician for ever.

Fast forward to Spring 2025, that phone call a distant memory, the parenting service long since reconfigured and pared back to within an inch of its life, but the Parents Plus courses still being offered. In fact, in the intervening years, the word about the Parents Plus parenting programmes has spread from Cornwall in the south to Scotland in north, from Wales in the west to Hertfordshire over in east, and various points in between.  How did this happen?  I guess the way of all good things – letting the work speak for itself. 

From the initial Facilitator Training to facilitating the courses themselves, witnessing practitioners and parents alike work together to think creatively and boldly about often painful and difficult situations has been both inspiring and humbling, as it has caused me to question so many of the accepted truths embedded within helping professions. 

The idea that parents will likely be doing at least some of the solution, at least some of the time, and then, harnessing the collective wisdom of the group of parents to nurture and enhance this, has meant that I have seen so many parents arrive often pretty much broken, and leave with the gentle breeze of optimism in their sails, and the signs of repaired relationships with their children in their sights.

From a practitioner’s perspective, the idea that I do not, indeed cannot, be an expert imparting knowledge if deep and meaningful parent-led change is to happen, can be both challenging and invigorating.  Knowing that the Parents Plus methodology has the courses as parent-led, and facilitated by the practitioner, makes the work interesting, often unpredictable in all the best ways, and highly satisfying.  In a very demanding field of work where the highlight of the week is often 4.30pm on Fridays, I have heard endless practitioners declare that their latest Parents Plus course is in fact the highlight of their working week.

I started working in this field when I was 26.  At 62, I should probably be either in management or completely spent and contemplating early retirement.  In fact, thanks to my work with Parents Plus, I feel as enthusiastic about this work as I did as a young idealistic lad wanting help the world.  Who’d have thought? 

With particularly grateful thanks to Professor John Sharry.