An article in the the Guardian newspaper on 24th August 2010 reports on a pilot project called “Empowering Parents, Empowering Communities”, in Southwark, South London, which offers courses on ‘Being a parent’ and provides training to parents who have completed the course who then wish to go on to become facilitators of the group in order to share their learning within their local community.
The Southwark Council website indicates that Empowering Parents, Empowering Communities is an 8 week course for parents and carers, of children aged two to 11 years old, to “learn practical communication skills for everyday life and develop their abilities to bring up confident, happy and co-operative children”.
The programme is funded as a two year outcome study and is being evaluated by Dr Crispin Day, Clinical Psychologist at the Centre for Parent and Child Support, Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service Research Unit, at the Institute of Psychiatry. He is quoted in the Guardian as saying that “about half the children whose parents are on the course have difficulties which would be equivalent to a diagnosed disorder, but the parents who go to the group are reporting that their children are showing a significant reduction in the severity of their behaviour problems”.
The Guardian article lists some “lessons to learn from the course” which include thinking positively about yourself as a parent; thinking about your own experiences of being a child and trying to act from this awareness; being specific when praising and stating what you want your child to do, rather than what you do not want them to do; explaining your own behaviour and trying to understand your child’s motivation for behaving as they are; and using star charts to reward good behaviour and discourage bad behaviour.
Further findings should be published as the study continues.
