A peer-reviewed article published November, 2019 in the Child & Family Behavior Therapy journal describes the study results of an evaluation of Make Parenting A Pleasure®  with highly stressed families. The outcomes indicate that Make Parenting A Pleasure®  is effective in improving several of the protective factors that are shown to reduce the risk of child abuse and neglect, specifically, reduced symptoms of depression and increased knowledge of parenting skills. Read the complete article here.

Parenting Now is proud to announce that Make Parenting A Pleasure® is listed as both a research- and evidence-based curriculum on the newly-issued Parenting Curricula Review Databases found on the Head Start Early Childhood Learning and Knowledge Center. This database is the result of a project conducted by the National Center of Parent Family Community Engagement and completed with researchers from the Brazelton Touchpoint Center and the Butler Institute for Families at the University of Denver. The database contains reviews of almost 30 parenting education and home-visiting curricula and their relevance and alignment with Head Start Performance standards.

About

Make Parenting A Pleasure® is a research- and evidence-based group parenting curriculum by Parenting Now built on a foundation of more than 35 years of experience in working with highly-stressed families with children ages newborn to 8. Make Parenting A Pleasure® is the most deployed of 3 curricula developed by Parenting Now in the State of Oregon. Curricula from Parenting Now lead all other parenting education curricula use in Oregon as shown in the 2017 report from the Oregon Parenting Education Collaborative (see pages 39 and 60). Make Parenting A Pleasure®’s prior evaluations demonstrate efficacy in reducing parent stress and addressing the protective factors shown to reduce the potential for child abuse. Thousands of families have completed Make Parenting A Pleasure® groups.

Make Parenting A Pleasure® addresses key topics including:

• Self care
• Stress and anger management
• Understanding child development
• Communication skills
• Positive discipline

Designed by parenting educators for parenting educators, Make Parenting A Pleasure®‘s facilitated approach to parent education helps parents achieve their goals for their families and respects the diversity of those goals. Parenting educators give the program high marks for its ease-of-use.

Make Parenting A Pleasure® is group-based. Its curriculum is modularized into discrete sessions, contained within separate facilitator booklets, to enable organizations to offer multiple groups using a single set of materials.

Make Parenting A Pleasure® aligns with Head Start Performance Standards (1302.51 Parent activities to promote child learning and development).

Training

The 13-session turn-key program is discussion-focused. Sessions are straightforward and comprehensive, with clear step-by-step instructions to the parenting educator that enables the implementation of the program without a training requirement. While many organizations use Make Parenting A Pleasure® without formal training, parenting educators will greatly benefit from the trainings and training support services provided by Parenting Now. Scheduled trainings are listed here.

Parenting Now is also a leader in parenting educator professional development. You can read about training offerings and consulting support here.

Implementation

Make Parenting A Pleasure® is designed to utilize a conversational process which respects the skills of the parent educator, empowers families, and can be adapted to suit a wide range of environments and populations to maximally improve outcomes. The parent educator acts as a guide to help the families discover unrealized parenting knowledge. This approach raises the confidence of parents as they discover that they already possess the capabilities necessary to achieve their family goals.

Each session’s module booklet is formatted with icons that guide the parent educator and identify key concepts, session agendas, and meeting materials requirements. Reproducible parent handouts are provided, along with forms for collecting feedback. The curriculum comes with 3 copies of our DVD which contains video clips that act as conversation starters to enhance discussion along with meeting flow and to help model parent behavior.

Make Parenting A Pleasure® includes:

• 13 modules formatted with icons identifying key concepts and session agendas
• Facilitator’s guide makes it easy to stay on task
• 15 parent booklets with reproducible handouts
• 15 parent graduation certificates
• 10 short videos on DVD that serve as conversation starters and help model parent behavior (3 copies)
• Parent evaluation materials