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Key ingredients of effective interventions

2. Parenting support for young parents

The main ingredient of programs aimed at young parents was parent education. This was undertaken in a very unstructured way, and typically involving peer learning. In some cases, peer educators were used to promote bonding and friendships among the young parents. A relaxed, social environment where young people have a say in the program content also appeared to work well.

Programs also tended to be quite intensive and involved considerable individual counselling, support and mentoring. Home visits, personal approaches, follow-ups and individual support also helped to build positive relationships between the young parent and the worker, which is central to engagement and retention. Other recruitment strategies include door knocks, approaching young mums’ groups, maternal and child health nurses, social workers at the maternity hospitals and other family services that work with young parents. Worker characteristics that are important for relationship-forming include being non-judgemental, understanding and accepting of the realities of young parents.

Re-engagement with education was a key service objective, and this was achieved in a variety of ways. Dealing with education issues after the young parent has been through a number of activities and feels fully engaged was one successful approach.

The diversity and complexity of client needs calls for strong program coordination, case management support and appropriate referral. All programs sought to engage the community by forging multiple partnerships and collaborations with other local community services (e.g., child care services, TAFE, medical services, etc.).

Accessibility is an important issue and projects have addressed this by being located in venues accessible to transport and/or providing parents with transport, with one program occasionally taking the participants to service venues and back again in their work car.

The provision of free child care (i.e., undertaken through a collaborative partnership with a child care service) has been critical to the success of the programs and had a dual purpose: it “freed up” the parent to focus on the program and provided children with a positive socialising experience.

Source: Promising Practice Profiles: Final report (PDF 2.2 MB) (Soriano, Clark & Wise. 2008). p31

Key ingredients of effective interventions

2. Parenting support for young parents

List of key ingredients:

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