|
Family & Corrections Network |
|
|
|
|
|
October 10-12, 1993 Quebec City, Quebec, Canada ADDRESSING THE NEEDS OF DISADVANTAGED PARENTS WITH 'READY OR NOT' Repondre aux besoins de parents depourvus avec le programme "Partons du bon pied" Sandra Murray, Consultant, Health Education, Education and Training Unit Health Promotion Directorate, Health and Welfare Canada, Ottawa PARTONS DU BON PIED! est un programme d'education parentale concu par Sante et Bien-etre social Canada, dans le cadre de la Strategie canadienne antidrogue. Le programme repond aux besoins des parents de preadolescents (ages de huit a 12 ans), ayant difficilement acces a l'information parentale a cause de leur niveau de revenu ou d'alphabetisme ou encore a cause de leur isolement social ou geographique. PARTONS DU BON PIED! est un programme de prevention et ne s'adresse pas aux familles qui vivent une situation de crise. PARTONS DU BON PIED! propose de la documentation claire et simple, une demarche de groupe et des techniques d'education des adultes qui aideront les parents a reconnaître, a developper, a raffiner, et a valoriser leurs habilites parentales. Le programme donne des renseignements sur la resolution de problemes, sur la comprehension et la communication avec les preadolescents. Il traite aussi de discipline, de l'usage des drogues et de sa prevention et de diverses facons d'aider les preadolescents a se sentir bien dans leur peau. Le travail de groupe stimule le soutien mutuel chez les participants, et les parents se sentent plus confiants pour faire face au stress et a leur tache de parents efficaces. PARTONS AU BON PIED! (aussi disponsible en anglais sous le titre READY OR NOT!) sert de complement a un autre programme de Sante et Bien-etre social Canada, Y'A PERSONNE DE PARFAIT, lequel s'adresse aux parents d'enfants de zero a cinq ans. Comment a-t-on elabore PARTONS DU BON PEID!? Des recherches exhaustives, divers ateliers et groupes de consultation ont permis d'identifier les preoccupations et les besoins d'information des intervenants communautaires et des parents. Leurs suggestions ont facilite la conception de la documentation et ont guide la prestation du programme PARTONS DU BON PIED! Un specialiste en vulgarisation a redige des ebauches, qui furent testees aupres de parents de 23 milieux differents dans sept provinces. Le programme PARTONS DU BON PIED! a enfin servi de projet pilote dans six provinces du pays. A chaque etape de l'elaboration, on a apporte des modifications refletant les besoins des parents et des animateurs de ce programme. Ready or Not/Partons du bon pied is a parent education program developed under Canada's Drug Strategy for parents of pre-adolescents (children ages 8 to 12 years old). It is designed for parents who for reasons of low-income, limited formal education or social or geographical isolation have difficulty accessing information from other sources. The focus of the program is on prevention rather than crisis intervention. What we are trying to do is to reach these parents before a crisis occurs. PROGRAM INFORMATION This six-session program for parents provides them with information on the "gateway" drugs - alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, and inhalants - and on parenting skills such as communication, decision-making and building children's self-esteem. It promotes mutual support within the group and provides information on how to find help and support outside the group. It encourages parents to recognize and value their own abilities as parents. The goals of the program are: to enhance parent-child communication; to increase parents' self-esteem; to build self help and mutual support among parents; to provide drug and alcohol information. PROGRAM CHALLENGES There are two challenges to this program: 1. the first is to develop materials appropriate to the target population. This means not only providing them with information they want but also writing it so that they can read it and presenting it in a format that is easy for them to follow; 2. the second challenge is to develop an innovative implementation strategy. This is a hard-to-reach population and it will not matter if we develop the best materials in the world if we cannot get it to the people for whom it is intended. BACKGROUND To give you a bit of background, the Directorate initiated the project with a field search and literature review to identify existing programs in the parent education field. It was found that while there were many programs out there, few were suited to this target population. (They were mainly for middle class parents.) The project was undertaken in an attempt to fill this gap. Before going ahead with more research and development, we decided to go to parents to find out some of their major concerns and the kind of information they felt they needed. In a focus test, parents ranked their major concerns as: 1) quality of family life, 2) their children's self-esteem and 3) drugs. The three most important topics on which they wanted more information were 1) drugs, followed closely by 2) sexuality and child development and 3) by child rearing practices. To get the view point of professionals who work in the field, two important workshops were held: one with evaluation researchers, the other with grass roots practitioners who worked directly with the target population. Their task was to make recommendations on the development, implementation and evaluation of the project. Some of the major recommendations resulting from these two workshops included: involving the target population in resource development (if you want them to use the material, they have to feel some ownership for it); exploring a new system for program delivery; how to get material to a group of people who ordinarily do not go out to programs; developing resources/models which can be adapted by communities, "owned" by communities, and used by lay leaders, professionals, parents and children; combining self-help approaches with professional support/instruction. Key educators and sponsoring organizations expressed a need for much of the information that had been gathered during the project's needs analysis and network development stages. In response to these expressed needs and in an effort to promote information sharing and facilitate networking, several products were developed based on some of the activities I have just described. These included: Parent Education: A Review and Analysis of Drug Abuse Prevention and General Programs: Parenting: Issues and Concerns: A Focus Group Report; and Directory of Professionals Promoting Parent Education in Canada: 1984-1985. RESOURCES FOR PARENTS After all this background work was done, a more specific needs assessment of the parents was carried out to: 1) identify content areas that they felt were important; 2) determine appropriate methods to deliver the content; 3) obtain reactions to existing materials and 4) seek suggestions for formatting written materials. In the area of content, the results indicated that parent wanted information on 1) drugs, 2) communication skills, 3) building self-esteem in their children, and 4) discipline. Format preferences included use of colour and large-sized print; not too many words; drug information presented with visuals in an easy to read format; and use of cartoons to express some of the key concepts in the parenting areas. We contracted a writer with expertise in writing for people with limited reading skills to write material that would meet the reading requirements of the target population. She also developed the two other resources that are part of the program - the facilitator's guide and the guide for sponsoring agencies. The material was sent out to a large number of reviewers and went through many drafts in an effort to pin down the content. We had a great deal of good information but we could not include it all. Our final revisions about the content were made on the basis of the following: 1) the program is one of prevention not crisis intervention, which meant we would not include information on drug treatment, the signs and symptoms of drug abuse or the short-and long-term effects of using drugs; 2) because it is designed for parents of pre-adolescents (8-12 years old) whose children are not on drugs, we provided information only on those drugs with which children first start experimenting, i.e. alcohol, tobacco, inhalants, and marijuana - the "gateway" drugs; 3) to assist parents in the area of self-help, we added to the parenting section basic information on starting a group, joining a group and steps in decision-making; and 4) the information needed to be presented in a simple, concise manner in order to accommodate the reading skills of the target population. FOCUS TESTS We contracted a company to work with our writer to provide illustrations and to present the material in an appropriate format. We then went back to the target population to get their reaction before finalizing the material. We also wanted feedback on the best way to deliver the program. Focus tests with parents were carried out in English and French in 23 sites in 7 provinces. All along we had been keeping our potential target delivery group involved by asking for their input on drafts of the materials and keeping them informed of our progress. We also invited them to view the focus tests which provided another opportunity for them to be involved in the process of program development. Of all the things we learned from the focus testing, the two that stand out in my mind are: a) even though there is a great deal of drug information out there, parents felt it was important for us to be developing this material for them, and b) parents told us how much they appreciated our asking for their opinion while we were still in the process of developing the materials. PILOT TEST Once the program materials had been developed, our next step was to pilot test the program. Twenty-one test sites in six provinces were chosen based on suggestions from the program's advisory committees. The six provinces included New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Quebec, Ontario, Saskatchewan and British Columbia. Within each province we wanted to include a large city (100,000+), a smaller city (30,000 - 60,000) and a rural area. Facilitators were trained in a 3-day training session and then went back to their communities to recruit parents. Initially they thought it would be easy to get parents to attend the program; however, it turned out to be more difficult than they had expected. An extensive and sometimes elaborate recruitment process took place. In the end, what worked best was if the facilitator knew the parents and contacted them personally. The latter requires a great deal of time and effort on the part of the facilitator but is the most effective way of getting parents to come out to the program. Based on recommendations from the pilot test evaluation, we made a number of revisions both to the program materials and the program itself and were then ready to begin program implementation. Throughout the development of this project, we have been trying to keep as many options open as possible for program delivery. One thing we learned from the parents was that they did not want to attend a program that was offered by an agency or organization that had the power to take away their children if they thought they had a drug problem. We saw the proposed program deliverers as those organizations that already reached the target population through education and support services. They would be groups perceived as non-threatening and could vary from community to community and province to province. The program is now being implemented in all 10 provinces through community-based agencies that work with hard-to-reach parents. These include such organizations as health units, community health centres, housing authorities, native friendship centres, Boys and Girls Clubs, family service centres, the YM-YWCA and multicultural groups. Provincial coordinating committees are being formed to ensure the program becomes self-sustaining following the initial implementation. Needless to say, we are quite excited by the fact that parents who tended not to come out to parenting programs are coming out to these sessions. Ready or Not we're on our way! |
|
