Starcatchers and Fife Gingerbread deliver Baby in the Park event for CashBack for Young Parents families

Unicorn Dance Party brought plenty of summer festivities to Dunfermline this July as Starcatchers and Fife Gingerbread hosted an unforgettable event for families taking part in their Cashback for Young Parents programme. 

Supported by CashBack for Communities, the Starcatchers and Fife Gingerbread partnership builds on five years of collaboration between the two organisations, to deliver a three-year programme for Fife families. Over the first year of the project 46 young people have been engaged across all strands of the programme, and 20 babies have attended Play & Explore with their grown-ups on a weekly basis. 

As well as learning opportunities, and a partnership with a local high school, the project includes Play & Explore, a series of weekly creative play sessions delivered by Starcatchers Artists, offering beautiful, accessible and unique play experiences for the young parents of the programme and their babies from birth to three years. These sessions are attended by a Fife Gingerbread Support Worker, who offers one-to-one sessions to the parents taking part in the programme. 

Play & Explore is the latest in a series of projects between Starcatchers and Fife Gingerbread, working with a dual delivery model of artist and support worker. The wider CashBack for Young Parents programme is delivered by Fife Gingerbread with a focus on the young parents. Starcatchers’ Play & Explore role ensures there are benefits for both parent and child, with the arts and creativity as the vehicle to strengthening the parent-child bond, increasing parental confidence, breaking down barriers to access, and offering an opportunity for peer-support in an informal and fun environment. 

Baby in the Park is the latest day out for the project and has been planned around including wider family circles in the event, and importantly, older siblings of the babies Starcatchers and Fife Gingerbread see every week. The event is also kindly supported by the Carnegie Dunfermline Trust. 

Play & Explore Lead Artist, Roz McAndrew says: 

Over the first year of the CashBack for Young Parents programme, we have built such a strong connection with the families we see every week. Baby in the Park is a chance for us to get out into the community, have a play and a dance, and for our families to invite their parents, grandparents, siblings, wider relatives and friends, to join us for a lovely summertime celebration. We are delighted that Unicorn Dance Party will be leading the entertainment and we can’t wait to share this exciting event with the parents and their little ones.