Suffolk County Council’s Public Health and Communities Team are fully funding 100 schools to buy Families Together!
They are working in partnership with Hamish & Milo and the Delivering Better Value (DBV) team to bring you this amazing opportunity, prioritising those serving the most deprived communities.
Hamish & Milo Families Together helps schools and families work in partnership – providing them with early help, understanding, practical approaches, skills and language to support the mental health and wellbeing of their children.
Families Together is a 10-week parent/carer–child programme designed to run in schools, providing a structured, creative and relational way to engage parents and carers alongside their children, with fun, accessible workshops.
The ten family workshops are directly linked to the ten Hamish & Milo Programme emotion-themed units focusing on the concepts of friendship, resilience, anxiety, diversity/inclusion, angry feelings, transition/change, conflict, loss, sadness and self-esteem. Family members experience Hamish & Milo, gain insight into what their children are learning, share home-to-school experiences in a safe environment, and meet other families to benefit from a mutual support network.
The Suffolk County Council package includes Navigator access limited to the Families Together programme for the period of the project. Schools that already have a Navigator licence will have full access.
How to use Navigator
Please watch this 15 minute video whcih shows you exactly how to use Navigator for Families Together.
- 1Add your staff member(s) who are running groups
- 2
Add your children’s code(s)
- 3
Add your group profile i.e. Families Together Autumn 2025
- 4
Add pre-intervention data – Family Voice questionnaire
- 5
Add post-intervention data – Family Voice questionnaire
- 6View the dashboard for impact reporting
What’s included for your school:
Your commitment:
All programme content, including the session plans, is available online.
We also send you
Families Together Programme FAQs
Yes, once you have purchased the Families Together parent/carer programme, you can use it with as many groups as you like.
All the instructions, session plans, etc, are available in the manual and online for your staff for an unlimited period. We provide the physical stock to run three groups, one per term for a year, that includes stickers, certificates and sock puppet pet craft kits, Insight & Activity cards and Family Voice questionnaires and you can purchase top up bundles for additional groups.
All session plans are available online as well as downloadable resources such as templates, models and activities. We also send you the sock puppet pet craft kits, stickers and certificates.
• Access to a room or space for six children and six adults
• Refreshments such as tea, coffee, squash, milk, biscuits, cakes
• Supporting resources such as art materials, as outlined in our provided resource list
• Some preparation time
Try to encourage a parent/carer or family member to come each time because the importance is on the child having their special adult with them to do the family activity. It might be best for a child to miss a session if their parent or carer can’t make a session, or if there is a special adult who can step in on an odd occasion that could still work, but only as a last resort.
Yes. It is a ten-week programme and family members are encouraged to attend all sessions. Each week covers a new emotion theme and fundamental social and emotional development skills relevant to them even if their child has only completed one of the Hamish & Milo intervention groups.
All you can do is encourage the parents and carers to join the programme by explaining how it is to help them understand more about Hamish & Milo and what their children are learning in their groups, as well as provide them with practical approaches, skills and language to support the wellbeing of their children. We hope they will be interested in coming, but sometimes reluctant parents/carers may join the next time when they have heard good things and word has spread!
This will depend on your school setting and your confidence. Ideally, it is best to have two adults to facilitate discussions and assist with activities. However, we understand that due to capacity issues in schools, it may be necessary for the programme to be run by just one facilitator.
We suggest facilitators run the programme after attending our free 90-minute Families Together training session on content and implementation. A two-day accredited training programme is in the pipeline to build facilitator confidence, expertise and best practice.
Depending on capacity and time, we recommend you run a Families Together programme once per term. It will depend on the number of children and parents/carers you wish to be involved in the programme and the logistics for each school. You could have a waiting list and, depending on capacity, run additional groups.
No. Families Together parent programme supports the understanding of children’s social and emotional development and the contents of Hamish & Milo SEMH programmes so that schools and families can better work together to support children’s mental health and wellbeing.
Yes, the groups can include children from different age groups. Parents/carers can discuss a range of things about different emotions and experiences, and relate them to their child, whatever the age. It can be beneficial to have groups with children of similar ages. Remember, you know your children best!
Knowing your children, you may like to select parents/carers if you think they would benefit particularly from the programme and extend a personal invitation. Alternatively, you could hold an information session for all parents and carers of children who have been in an intervention group and offer a place to anyone who would like to join.
Yes! Encourage dads, mums, stepparents, aunts, uncles, grandparents – whoever is a key caregiver and free to join the sessions. We recognise that some parents/carers work, and it is hard to attend all sessions, but please encourage family members to come so that the child has a special adult with them each week. It works best if it is the same adult each week, but sometimes we have to be flexible as lives are busy.
Like the main Hamish & Milo Programme aim for six children, and then a family member, whether a parent, carer, grandparent, etc., per child. The group needs to be manageable for the size of the room, with space for the activities and to ensure that everyone has time and opportunity to speak and share ideas in the group.
