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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Video: Reuniting families with Care 4 Kids

Child's i Foundation, 04 Feb 2016

In this video Child's i Foundation works with Care 4 Kids, an orphanage for 53 children, which wants to reintegrate children back into families but had challenges convincing the families that they could provide better care. Child's i Foundation organised an open day for families and invited parents who had taken their children back from Rafiki to explain the benefits of children growing up in families.

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‘I want to be better than you:’ lived experiences of intergenerational child maltreatment prevention among teenage mothers in and beyond foster care

Elizabeth M. Aparicio - Child & Family Social Work, 04 Feb 2016

This study focused on a particular dimension of teenage motherhood in foster care: participants' efforts to break the cycle of child abuse and neglect with their own children.

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Family Strengthening in Focus - Pillar for Sustainable Development in Africa

Parenting in Africa Network and Save the Children, 01 Feb 2016

This report shares highlights and lessons learned from PAN's work on family strengthening during the year 2015.

Utilising Group Work in The Implementation of Family Preservation Services: Views of Child Protection Social Worker

Josane Van Huyssteen, Marianne Strydom - Social Work, 2016

This paper discusses the style and efficacy of child preservation services for the purpose of reducing child abuse and neglect.

Support Systems for Grandparents Caring for Children of Prisoners in Developing Countries

Gloria K. Seruwagi, Francis Ssuubi, Eric A. Ochen - European Journal of Research in Social Sciences, 2016

The overall objective of this study was to deepen understanding on the experiences and support systems of grandparent-headed households with children of prisoners (CoP) in Uganda.

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Child Protection and Parent Support: The Two Dichotomies

Dejan Janićijević - Factas Universitatis: Law and Politics, 2016

This paper examines the two basic models of the state authorities’ intervention into family life aimed at protecting children.

Kinnected: Keeping Children in Families

ACCI Relief, 2016

Kinnected is a program run in 10 countries by the organization ACCI Relief aimed at preserving and strengthening families and assisting children currently in residential care to achieve their right to be raised in a family. This report describes Kinnected’s programs and initiatives underway in Cambodia, Sri Lanka, and Lesotho and includes some individual case studies.

Embarazo y Maternidad en la Adolescencia: Estado de las Madres en México

Save the Children, 2016

Desde el año 2000, el Ranking anual sobre el Estado Mundial de las Madres se ha convertido en una herramienta fiable para mostrar en qué países les va mejor a las madres y sus bebés y dónde enfrentan las mayores dificultades.

Good Practices from Positive Discipline and Family Strengthening Interventions

Parenting in Africa Network, 2016

This document highlights examples of good practices in parenting and family strengthening interventions based on evaluations of programs and initiatives throughout Africa.

Lighting up young brains: How parents, carers and nurseries support children’s brain development in the first five years

Jerome Finnegan - Save the Children, 2016

This report from Save the Children outlines the rapid development that takes place in the brain in the early years of life and the crucial role that caregivers play in supporting this development.