Introduction
This Practice Guide focuses on parenting support for families experiencing adversities who have at least one child or young person aged 11 to 18 years old.
This Guide relates to all outcomes of the Children’s Social Care National Framework. The enablers of the National Framework (leadership, workforce, multi-agency working) have a role in supporting the delivery of this Guide’s key principles and recommendations.
This summary online version complements a full version of the Practice Guide.
This Guide should be considered alongside the Parenting through Adversity (0-10) Practice Guide.
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All children and young people need responsive and nurturing parenting. However, for some, parenting can come with challenges. This is especially the case where there are additional adversities that undermine the skills, abilities and/or resources parents have to offer support.
Effective parenting programmes can help strengthen a family’s response and resilience and improve a range of both parent and child outcomes, including:
- Improving parenting skills and confidence
- Improving overall family functioning and parent-child relationships
- Improving behaviours that challenge for children and young people at risk of challenging behaviour, as well as those already involved in anti-social behaviour
- Reducing child internalising behaviours, such as withdrawal, anxiety and low mood
- Supporting parental mental health and improving parenting stress.
Experiencing adversities
Our review defined a range of adversities (synonymous throughout with multiple and complex needs) based on various established risk factors for child maltreatment. Some adversities were more common in the evidence, such as child conduct problems, while others were less common, including low socio-economic status and poor parental mental health. The review included families where the presence of abuse was known to children’s social care, but such populations were in the minority of evidence identified.
It is important to note that, while parenting interventions can play a vital role in reducing behaviours that challenge, they have limitations. For some children and young people, difficulties such as withdrawal, aggression, or changes in behaviour may also signal experiences of exploitation or harm outside the home.
For these families, parenting interventions are embedded within a coordinated safeguarding response that brings together schools, youth services, health services, and specialist agencies, such as youth justice services, if appropriate, to ensure that these harms are appropriately addressed.
What do we mean by parenting support?
We use the term ‘parenting support’ to broadly refer to parenting interventions, programmes, and services that support parents of children and young people with their parenting, including parenting practices and the parent-child relationship.
Find out more about definitions and scope related to this Guide.
We would like to acknowledge the invaluable input of our Parenting and Experts by Experience Advisers who worked closely alongside our Guidance Writing Advisory Group to develop this Practice Guide: Noshin Mohamed, Newham London Borough Council; Kar-man Au, Relational Activism; Christine Thursfield, Telford & Wrekin Council; Abbee McLatchie, National Youth Agency; Keifer Bird; Vanessa Baxter, York St John University; Dr Sajid Humayun, Greenwich University; Freya Glendinning, Youth Endowment Fund; Rachael Owens, Durham University; Valentina Levi and Anna Honeysett, Brent Centre for Young People; Emma Ford, Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council.
We would also like to thank Liverpool John Moores University for their work on the systematic reviews that underpin this Practice Guide.