Parenting programmes in County Tipperary: information sheet

The Incredible Years (IY) Parenting Programme offers practical and positive support, advice and information to parents, carers, guardians of young children aged 3 to 8 years. It operates as a group programme – the Preschool Early Childhood BASIC (3-6 years) & School Age BASIC (6-8 years) – and on a one-to-one basis, the Home Visiting Coach programme.

 

  • Parents learn various strategies to help children regulate their emotions, to improve their social skills, and to do better academically. It can also mean a more enjoyable family life.
  • In the group programme, parents meet as a group with two trained facilitators. They are given opportunities to collectively and individually develop new ways of managing their children and working together in partnerships.
  • Group aspects include: setting personal goals, role play practices, self-reflection, facilitator feedback, and home or classroom activities. Facilitators use video scenes to encourage group discussion, problem-solving and sharing of ideas. Parents and teachers are given handouts, activities to practice with children, and reminder notes to put on their refrigerator or blackboards.

 

  • IY Home Visiting Coach programme: one-to-one programme with parents in home setting.

 

  • The IYP programme is an evidence-based programme. It is one of the few ‘model’ programmes designed to directly tackle the issue of emotional and behavioural difficulties in children. It has been subject to independent rigorous evaluation, which has produced scientific evidence of its long-term effectiveness.

 

More info on the Incredible Years Programme at: http://incredibleyears.com/programs/

 

 

Parents Plus is a parenting programme developed in Ireland by Professor Carol Fitzpatrick, Dr. John Sharry and other Irish professionals in the Mater Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service. The Parents Plus programmes are practical and positive evidence-based parenting courses, using video input to support and empower parents to manage and solve discipline problems, promote children’s learning and develop satisfying and enjoyable family relationships. There are now 3 programmes aimed at different age groups: Parents Plus Early Years Programme (1-6 years), Parents Plus Children’s Programme (6-11 years) and Parents Plus Adolescent Programme (11-16 years).

 

Independent robust evaluation has shown that the programme is effective in reducing behaviour problems in children, reducing parental stress and achieving high satisfaction from parent. 

 

Web-link: http://www.parentsplus.ie/programmes-about/

 

 

Common Sense Parenting is an evidence-based parenting group programme which provides logical strategies and easy-to-learn techniques to address issues of:        

  • Communication                                                                                                                                                                                        
  • Discipline                                                                                                                                                       
  • Decision-making,
  • Relationships
  • Self-control
  • School success

The programme envisages the parents as being best-placed to teach:

  • Social skills to their children as the key to helping them find success at home, in school and in other settings;
  • Consequences for positive / negative behaviour;
  • Self-control                                         

The programme incorporates research-proven childcare methods, derived directly from the U.S.-based Boys Town Treatment Family Homes programme, and adapted for use by parents in the home.

For more information, go to the web-link: http://www.boystown.org/documents/csp/1101-02513e_National_CSP_ NRI_OneSheet.pdf

 

Positive Parenting for Changing Families: Building Stronger Relationships and Managing Difficult Behaviours

This parenting programme has been developed by One Family, Ireland’s national organization for one-parent families. It aims to provide parents with a toolkit of skills that enable them to help their children to successfully make their own way in the world. Building on their existing skills, parents participating in the programme learn:

  • to explore the needs of children and reasons why they misbehave
  • different techniques to handle difficult behaviour and how to actively listen to your child
  • ways to deal with situations like family change, bullying, fussy eating and much more.

The programme has been evaluated.                                                                                                                            For more information: https://onefamily.ie/?s=Parenting

 

The ‘Parenting through Art’ programme, devised and delivered by Marian Clarke, Senior Art Therapist, combines Art Therapy and Adlerian principles for Democratic and Respectful parenting. Parents learn ways through Art & Play about how they can:

  • give their children positive encouragement
  • help their children to develop the 4 Cs: to feel connected, capable, courageous when facing challenge, and counted ( the sense that his/her contributions make a difference)
  • introduce a democratic family model into their home by negotiating family agreements and logical consequences where children learn from their actions about taking responsibility.

For more information on Adlerian parenting techniques: http://www.lifematters.com/step.asp

 

Partnership with Parents

Partnership with Parents is a parenting programme devised by Barnardos and is underpinned by an extensive review of parenting literature.

 

Family Caring Trust parenting programmes:

Helping Families to Help Themselves

Family Caring Trust is a Charity founded in 1986 to support and empower parents by providing practical, skill-based resources to improve family relationships

Courses developed by the Family Caring Trust are eclectic, not rigidly tied to any one system but drawing on:

  • Adlerian psychology(goals of misbehaviour, discipline through natural and logical consequences),
  • Bowen Family Systems (emphasis on changing self, not others, growing in self-differentiation and becoming a more non-anxious presence, also on reinforcing change by withdrawing attention from the more symptomatic elements in the family system and focusing on the more influential elements),
  • Reality Therapy (negotiating and conflict management within the family), Re-evaluation Counselling (importance of parents working on their own childhood distresses and internalised oppression, value of tears, of play, and of expression of feelings), and
  • Person-centred Counselling (active listening, expressing needs and feelings in “I” messages).

While there is a clear focus on improving communication within a family, there is also emphasis on change – changing the power basis and decision-making balance within the couple relationship and between parents and children.

All independent evaluations to date have been positive about the user-friendliness of the courses and the beneficial effects on the family life of participants.

For more information, follow the web-link: http://www.familycaring.co.uk/