Great Parenting
Our Solution

The Core of Our Solution

With your assistance, we aim to contribute towards redressing the challenges by offering an enhanced version of the notorious and effective Strengthening Families, Strengthening Communities parenting educational programme.

This program is modelled on its Strengthening Multi-Ethnic Families: A Violence Prevention Programme, the US predecessor, developed by Dr. Marilyn Steele alongside Jerry Tello, Ronald Johnson and Marilyn Marigna in the early 1990s. It was geared towards dealing with  multiple issues, including (but not limited to)  domestic and gang violence, an increasing concern in the UK as the recent riots testify.

The Strengthening Families, Strengthening Communities parenting educational programme is a community based 13 week four hour programme, specifically designed to promote some of the protective factors associated with 'good parenting' (developing close and warm relationships between parents and children; using methods of discipline that support self-discipline in children; fostering self-esteem of children; developing strategies to deal with risky situations; managing anger etc).

At the same time SFSC deals with the factors in parenting that are associated with increased risk (inconsistent parenting; harsh discipline in an overly critical environment; limited supervision; isolation and lack of knowledge of community resources). Importantly, the SFSC approach emphasizes that parenting is impacted by the local environment (for example the availability of good schools) and that parents should play an active role in shaping this environment by engaging with community resources.

The SFSC parent educational programme is based on a strengths based 'facilitative model' which aims to raise the consciousness of parents. In addition, the curriculum aims to help families develop or promote: strong ethnic and cultural roots; positive parent-child relationships; a range of life skills; self-esteem, self-discipline and social competence; and an ability to access community resources.  

SFSC achieves its aims through a range of methods which include:
    • providing parents with information to empower them;
    • developing anger management and positive discipline techniques;
    • providing a cultural framework to validate the historical and family experiences of different ethnic groups;
    • decreasing isolation by helping parents to connect to community resources.

 

The programme has been shown to have been useful in a range of settings and with a range of different populations. This has included:
    • both urban and rural settings;
    • with men as well as women ? teenage parents; single parents, both parents attending together or separately and parents who do not have custody of their children;
    • with a range of ethnic groups, religious and educational backgrounds;
  • a wide variety of agencies such as voluntary, statutory and partnership organisations, and community groups.
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