Parenting Support

Families will require support when faced with problems they are unable to overcome on their own. Ideally support should come from existing networks, such as extended family, religious leaders, and neighbours. Where such support is not available or sufficient, additional family and community services are required. Such services are particularly important for kinship, foster and adoptive caretakers, and child headed households in order to prevent separation and address abuse and exploitation of children. It is also vital for children affected by HIV/AIDS and armed conflict, and those children living on the street.

Parenting support services are typically provided by social and community paraprofessionals. They focus on the individual needs of a child or family, in order to address and overcome issues which may lead to family separation or harm to the child. Such services should be provided within the context of case planning, beginning with an assessment of the child and family situation. By assessing the need first, an appropriate set of services can be offered, such as day care provision, parenting support, household economic strengthening, or psychosocial referral.

Day care services are particularly important for caretakers who are overwhelmed as a result of ill health, cannot provide adaquate care because they need to work, or who are isolated within the community. It provides an excellent opportunity for children to socialise with others, and can offer additional protection and education.

Parenting support provides caretakers with an opportunity to talk about their difficulties, and learn additional techniques for meeting their child’s developmental and relationship needs. It can enable caretakers to cope with behavioural problems, and address abusive parenting techniques, thereby reducing the need for family separation and improving the incidence of successful family reunification.

The literature in this section contains information on family support programmes for vulnerable children, including day care and parenting support.

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Strengthening Caregiver Parenting Skills for Family Reintegration

Coordinating Comprehensive Care for Children (4Children), 01 Sep 2019

This Practitioner Brief from the the Coordinating Comprehensive Care for Children (4Children) project presents key learning and recommendations from the Keeping Children in Healthy and Protective Families (KCHPF) project in Uganda, which supported the reintegration of children living in residential care back into family care through the provision of a household-based parenting program, individualized case management support and a reunification cash grant aimed at strengthening the reintegration process.

ASPIRES Family Care Summary Research Report

Emily Namey & Lisa Laumann - FHI 360, 01 Sep 2019

The Accelerating Strategies for Practical Innovation and Research in Economic Strengthening (ASPIRES) Family Care Project focused on how economic strengthening (ES) interventions can help prevent unnecessary separation of children from families as well as support the reintegration into family care of children who were already separated. This mixed methods evaluation was implemented alongside programming that included longitudinal quantitative data collection with all participating FARE and ESFAM households at three time points to assess a range of indicators related to household economic and family well-being, as well as in-depth, longitudinal qualitative research to help understand how (well), from participants’ perspectives, the FARE and ESFAM interventions aligned with perceived drivers of separation and families’ experienced child-level effects of programming.

Culturally Competent Parenting: A Test of Web‐Based Training for Transracial Foster and Adoptive Parents

Jordan E. Montgomery - Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 19 Aug 2019

This study tested a web‐based parenting course called FosterParentCollege.com (FPC) Culturally Competent Parenting (CCP) for transracial foster and adoptive parents.

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Systematic Review of Community- and Home-Based Interventions to Support Parenting and Reduce Risk of Child Maltreatment Among Families With Substance-Exposed Newborns

Allison L. West, Sarah Dauber, Laina Gagliardi, Leeya Correll, Alexandra Cirillo Lilli, Jane Daniels - Child Maltreatment, 13 Aug 2019

The purpose of this systematic review is to synthesize existing research on community- and home-based interventions designed to improve parenting and reduce risk of maltreatment for families with substance-exposed newborns (SENs), applying a program logic framework.

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Power in research relationships: Engaging mothers with learning difficulties in a parenting programme evaluation

Beth Tarleton and Pauline Heslop - Qualitative Social Work, 05 Aug 2019

This paper describes one researcher’s reflections about their own engagement with participants of an evaluation of a parenting course.

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Family Strengthening: A collection of promising practices

International Child Development Initiatives & Save the Children International, 01 Aug 2019

The purpose of the review, developed by International Child Development Initiatives, was to present an overview of (as much as possible) evidence-based promising practices in Family Strengthening interventions in Cambodia, implemented by FCF|REACT partners.

Let’s Raise Children in Families Programme Case Study: Divine

National Commission for Children, UNICEF, USAID, 01 Aug 2019

This case study profiles the reintegration experiences of one child who has participated in the Tubarerere Mu Muryango (Let’s Raise Children in Families - TMM) programme in Rwanda.

Implementation of an Early Preventive Intervention Programme for Child Neglect: SafeCare

Ignacia Arruabarrena, Joaquín de Paul, and María Cañas - Psicothema, 30 Jul 2019

This paper presents the results of the first pilot implementation in Spain of SafeCare, a home visiting evidence-based programme for the prevention and treatment of child neglect in families with children aged 0-5 years old.

Outcome and Cost-Savings Data for Selected Types of Family Support Services: A Summary for Orange County Social Services

Peter J. Pecora and Paul DiLorenzo - Casey Family Programs, 30 Jul 2019

This document from Casey Family Programs reviews data on Family Resource Centers and other family support services in the US.

Collaborative Alliance of Parent and Child Welfare Caseworker

Tyrone C. Cheng, Celia C. Lo - Child Maltreatment, 30 Jul 2019

This secondary analysis of data describing 3,035 parents, drawn from the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being II, identified factors fostering the collaborative alliance of parents and caseworkers within the child welfare system.

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