Moving Up Moving On

Moving Up Moving On (MUMO) started in 2016 and works in partnership with Springfield Primary School and St. Clare’s Primary School to provide support services for children and parents. Springfield Primary School and St. Clare’s Primary are the two core schools. MUMO also delivers activities in a small amount of other schools to replicate the programme and share good practice family support work with more schools.

MUMO services are mostly cross community and include:
  • Programmes supporting parents and children such as Families Connect which aims to increase parent’s skills and confidence in supporting their child’s learning, focusing on emotional development; literacy and numeracy
  • Annual summer activities for up to 100 children from the two schools. This includes MUMO’s cross-community Summer Scheme which engages with up to 60 children and different summer activities in the two schools which MUMO supports.
  • Family Matters: a monthly session where parents and children from the two schools do an activity and eat together
  • Regular after-school’s activities such as sport and cooking
  • A weekly women’s group for parents/carers/grandparents from the two schools: participants engage in a wide variety of activities such as cooking; gardening; health awareness or sewing
  • Formal and informal education and training e.g. Five Steps to Wellbeing (Open College Network level two)
  • Exercise classes – pilates; aerobics; zumba
  • Regular health taster promotion events such as complementary therapy sessions
  • A transition programme, offering workshops for children in P7 to prepare them for moving from primary to post primary education.
Children Support Workers

MUMO employs two children’s support workers, with one based in each school. They can work one on one with children, with small groups of children or with whole classes. Both are trained in lego therapy and use this is a key resource. Some activities include:

  • Team building exercises
  • Exercise activities
  • Support with communication skills
  • Friendship groups
  • Literacy and numeracy support
  • Nurture groups
  • Lego therapy sessions
Family Engagement and counselling programme

MUMO family engagement workers (FEWs) provide one to one parenting support to parents. Support is wide and varied – including providing emotional support to accessing food/fuel vouchers for parents from partner organisations when available to supporting parents in school meetings to liaising with housing officers on behalf of parents in housing need to supporting families with free school meal forms. MUMO has a spare computer specifically for parents which they can use any time during office hours – not all of our parents have access to a device suitable for filling in forms. FEWs also organise and deliver an informative, supportive programme of activity for parents.

Thorough a partnership with Relate NI, MUMO delivers a counselling programme in the two schools for children who need counselling support. During the first year of the current funding programme (The National Lottery Community Fund’s People and Communities programme), the MUMO schools’ counsellor facilitated 123 sessions with children in the two schools. Support is also available for parents, making the service as holistic as possible, basing the counselling service on the principle that whole family support is the most effective.

In response to the return to schools in September 2020 after closure due to the Covid-19 pandemic, MUMO paid for full time counsellors in each school for two weeks to support returning children and teachers who had all been out of full-time education for almost six months. MUMO was able to respond in an effective and innovative way, thanks to funding from the National Lottery’s Covid Emergency Fund.

MUMO staff attend nurture meetings in St. Clare’s and pastoral care meetings in both schools. These are multidisciplinary meetings where the best options for support for vulnerable families are explored. MUMO staff can provide important insights into issues parents may be facing.

MUMO is passionate about providing meaningful opportunities for children and families to develop and strengthen relationships and increase motivation, confidence and aspirations.

MUMO has four outcomes:
  1. Children make a positive transition from nursery to primary school, through primary school and from primary into post-primary school. Children approach learning with a positive, confident and enthusiastic outlook
  2. Families will be engaged with education and learning and will have developed educational aspirations and goals
  3. Improved relationships between school, family and community with an increased engagement of families in education and learning
  4. Emotional wellbeing will be raised/improved due to the provision and support provided to families and individuals, including access to specialist counselling.

July 2021-July 2022

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538 individual adults engaged with the MUMO programme
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241 individual children engaged in the MUMO programme
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In total, 779 individual adults and children engaged in the MUMO programme between July 2021 and July 2022

MUMO is managed through a project steering group (MUMO Advisory Parents Group) which consists of parents/grandparents/carers from the two schools. This group meets regularly to review activities and plan ahead for the coming term.

There is also a partnership group consisting of head teachers and deputy heads from the two schools, two Forthspring board members, MUMO project manager, Forthspring director and a representative from Relate NI. This group meets on a monthly basis and discusses activities suggested by the advisory group and issues in the schools which MUMO might be able to help with.

Click here to see the most recent evaluation report:http://MUMO Evaluation Report August 22_final

Click here to see an external evaluation of the 2021: Summer Scheme 21 

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What people say about MUMO

What children say about MUMO

What teachers and parents think about MUMO

If you would like to get involved or have a question about the MUMO project you can get in touch by emailing: mumo@forthspring.com.

The National Lottery Community Fund has been MUMO’s principal funder since it started in 2016. This funding is enhanced by grants from other funders – mainly for programme costs – such as Belfast City Council and the Public Helath Agency’s CLEAR programme.

Our Partners

Springfield Primary School ogo
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