Me You Us - Bonded together with seams of gold – Fiona Mac’s story

Can you tell me a little bit about your background and how you came to be involved in PAN?

Directly before being involved in the development of PAN I was working as an independent reviewing officer. I tried my best to be as empowering as I could with people, but I was unhappy about how things were.

It occurred to me that the parent usually sits in a case conference or a LAC review and is usually a small voiced person, who given all of their experience, could join up with other parents - their experience could be transformed, people could help each other and get through the situations and together we could transform the system.

We've come a long way since then. We've just grown and developed exponentially. Over the few years it's taken a lot of groundwork for everybody working together.

We did an initial parent consultation, which confirmed the hypothesis that parents would find a parent peer advocacy service interesting, beneficial and useful.

We’ve grown from there, designing a case level parent peer advocacy service, for which we gained funding from Welsh Government and with support from Neath Port Talbot and Swansea councils we commissioned to another serviced provider, Mental Health Matters.

We have been delivering direct services and support for parents through collective parent peer advocacy and the Parent Café model with tremendous collaboration between parents with lived experience and allied professionals.

What's changed over the last 12 months?

We've recently registered as a Community Interest Company which is an astonishing achievement. We have done the work; we’ve navigated changes and become more bonded as a team, and now a company. People are displaying their capabilities and their skills. There is more confidence in the group as a whole. We are clear in our vision for change which is more embedded. We have developed a lot of skill in working together, developing activities that are meaningful, and life changing, and are making more sense of things than we did before. A lot of people talk about PAN as being a family-like experience and that’s the nature of the relationships and the work from relationships.

PAN is also professional, in the sense of the way we go about things. We do things to a good standard. We have got the warmth of the relationships which have developed and we have got the issues around standards and doing things well. We are doing more things, better, and with a greater sense of team and family strength. Family, team, skills and people have all grown in confidence.

Thinking back over the last 12 months – what good or bad changes have come about as a result of your involvement with PAN?

PAN has a way to go to get full buy in and to achieve its aspirations and gain purchase at regional and national levels, to amplify parent voices in statutory social services with full, meaningful participation and reciprocal learning.

Of all the changes that you have identified, which one is more significant to you and why?

Leadership building within the team, and the development of teamwork, are probably the most significant, the building of the parent and community leaders and the growth and confidence of the team and the wider community of parents. Professionals are also coming to understand the benefits and potential of the PAN model in supporting families, and parents taking a lead role in designing and delivering services for other parents in conjunction with professionals and in authentic partnership.

Regarding the more significant change you've chosen, please can you tell me a bit about what it was like before? What it's like now and what you think brought about the change?

Before this year there was more of an internal focus on our group dynamics. We went through experiences of internal conflict, management of conflict, relationships between ourselves, parents and professionals. We understand that we are all equal and we are different. Parents have the experiences of multiple trauma too. In working out how to negotiate these things we have learned how to do it, and combined with the leadership and capability of the team, we have been more productive and more external facing.

What was the magic that caused the change?

There are trust issue and conflict issues and we have spent the time together working through things. Everyone here is committed to working things through. It is a love thing. It is to do with do with love. As well understanding, care and compassion, there is a sense of love.