The Parenting Collective CIC

The Parenting Collective CIC provides support for families across Greater Manchester during pregnancy, early parenthood, and the first years of a child’s life. Our work focuses on reducing isolation, supporting emotional and mental wellbeing, promoting secure parent-infant relationships, and creating safe, culturally aware, and inclusive spaces for families to find connection and confidence. Our practitioner team brings together a range of lived experience and professional training. This includes backgrounds in psychology, counselling, behavioural therapy, neurodiversity support, infant feeding counselling, women’s health, and early years development. We also have trained babywearing educators and movement facilitators who support parents to feel physically and emotionally held while they nurture their young children. This year we have continued to run our free and donation-based Cake for Breakfast Club sessions in Family Hub and community settings. These groups provide a warm, welcoming environment where parents and carers can share experiences, ask questions, receive support, and build relationships within their local community. Discussions often explore postnatal recovery, infant feeding, bonding, mental wellbeing, and the everyday realities of early parenthood. We provide babywearing support through our sling library, one to one guidance, and peer support. Families are offered safety-based holding and carrying education, as well as access to free and low-cost sling hire for those facing financial barriers. This ensures that carrying remains accessible, supportive, and empowering regardless of circumstance. Our Mama and Me Mindful Babywearing Dance Classes continue to offer joyful gentle movement, grounding, rhythm, and emotional connection. Parents frequently describe these sessions as uplifting, confidence-building, and a valuable way to bond with their baby while also caring for themselves. In response to what families told us they needed, we developed our Community Hour programme. These smaller group sessions support connection, learning, and wellbeing. They include nutritious shared refreshments, opportunities to learn and practise new skills, and access to expertise such as women’s health physiotherapy, early communication and literacy play, creative wellbeing sessions, and ongoing infant feeding guidance. Community Hour allows families to develop confidence, build relationships, and experience support without judgement or assessment. We also continue to participate in community arts and cultural events. This year, we delivered a large collaborative babywearing dance performance at The Trafford Centre, strengthening visibility of positive parent-infant connection and celebrating community pride and joy. Through all of our work, we aim to support families to feel less alone, more connected to others, and more confident in their own instincts and knowledge.