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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Country Care Review: Armenia

Better Care Network, 08 May 2017

This country care review includes the care-related Concluding Observations adopted by the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities during the seventeenth session (20 March 2017 - 12 April 2017) of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

“You Can't Run Into a Burning Building Without Getting Burned Yourself”: An Ecological Systems Perspective of Parents Choosing Out-of-Home Care for an Intercountry Adopted Child

JaeRan Kim - Families in Society: The Journal of Contemporary Social Services, 01 May 2017

This study explored the experiences of adoptive parents who chose to place their intercountry adopted child in out-of-home care due to the child's disability.

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Connecting the Dots: Supporting the Recovery and Reintegration of Children Affected by Sexual Exploitation

Claire Cody - ECPAT International, 01 May 2017

This report starts to collate evidence on what appears to be important to children who have experienced sexual exploitation.

The role of formal support in the lives of children of mothers with intellectual disability

Susan Collings, Rebekah Grace, Gwynnyth Llewellyn - Journal in Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities, 11 Apr 2017

This paper presents a study in which seven children aged 7–11 years whose mother have intellectual disabilities took part in semi-structured interviews to explore their experiences with social support services and formal supports.

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Preventing Unnecessary Loss of Parental or Family Care in Brazil, Guyana, India, South Africa, and Russia

Joanna Rogers - Family for Every Child, 01 Apr 2017

This report presents the findings from a study that aimed to explore the application in practice of the ‘necessity principle’ from the Guidelines on Alternative Care for Children (UN, 2009) by using three quantitative and three qualitative indicators that provide information about whether children and families have received support to the fullest extent possible before a child ends up outside of parental care arrangements in formal or informal care, or living alone.

Parenting Support and Parental Participation: Mapping Parenting Support in the Irish Context

Dr Nuala Connolly, Dr Carmel Devaney and Dr Rosemary Crosse - The UNESCO Child and Family Research Centre, NUI Galway, 01 Mar 2017

This study provides a mapping of parenting support service provision in Ireland.

Exploring opportunities for coordinated responses to intimate partner violence and child maltreatment in low and middle income countries: a scoping review

Loraine J. Bacchus et al. - Psychology, Health and Medicine , 01 Mar 2017

Increasing evidence suggests that intimate partner violence (IPV) and child maltreatment (CM) by a parent or caregiver intersect on a number of levels. This scoping review defines the intersections between IPV and CM and explores opportunities for more coordinated approaches to address both forms of violence.

Ending violence in childhood: A global imperative

A. K. Shiva Kumar et al. - Psychology, Health and Medicine, 01 Mar 2017

This editorial explores the experience and impact of childhood violence around the world and calls for a coordinated and multi-sectoral response to prevent violence, recognizing the need to identify and address the root causes of family separation and institutionalization.

Know Violence in Childhood: A Global Learning Initiative - Special Issue of the Journal of Psychology, Health and Medicine

Know Violence in Childhood: A Global Learning Initiative - Psychology, Health and Medicine, 01 Mar 2017

This Special Issue of the Journal of Psychology, Health and Medicine contains fifteen of several papers commissioned by the Know Violence Initiative. Together, these papers illustrate the complexity of violence experienced by children and present evidence-based strategies for addressing and preventing childhood violence.

Household Economic Strengthening Interventions in Programs to Reintegrate Children in Family Care and Prevent Family-Child Separation: A Brief Report on Responses to an Online Survey

Lisa Laumann, Emily Namey and Eunice Okumu, FHI 360, 01 Mar 2017

In November 2015, ASPIRES launched an online survey of practitioners to identify potential sources of learning and to assess needs for improving the use of economic strengthening (ES) interventions in reintegration and prevention of separation programming. This brief report summarizes the findings of this survey.