A NEW fund aimed at encouraging parents to learn alongside their children has been launched in east Durham.

The Family Learning Fund is looking for ideas from Community Groups who are interested in bringing young and old together in a learning environment.

The fund has been made available by East Durham Area Action Partnership (AAP) and will be administered by East Durham Trust.

Trust chief executive Malcolm Fallow, said: "We are looking for people to think out of the box and we think parents getting involved in homework after school is the kind of thing we would like people to come up with."

In other areas of the county funding has been found for initiatives like "lads and dads" football programmes, where a learning element is attached to the obvious football activity.

Similarly family fun days where the whole family builds up their IT skills during the planning of an event may be encouraged.

Mr Fallow added: "Anything that gets a family together in a learning situation should be considered for funding.

"We are working to the basic principle that families learning together leads to parents taking a greater interest in the education of their child and this has to be a good thing."

Any community group wanting further information about the fund should contact East Durham Trust on 0191-569 3511.