Evidence from England On Factors Facilitating School Involvement in Parenting Support

Author(s):

Mairi Ann Cullen(presenting / submitting)Stephen Cullen Geoff Lindsay

Conference:

ECER 2012

Network:

14. Communities, Families and Schooling in Educational Research

Format:

Paper

Session Information

14 SES 05 B, Policies and Action Related to Cooperation – Home-School-Community Links IV

Parallel Paper Session

Time:

2012-09-19

11:00-12:30

Room:

ESI 2 - Aula 5

Chair:

Raquel-Amaya Martínez-González

Contribution

The research reported (Lindsay, Band, Cullen & Cullen, 2008a) took place in England in September-October 2007, in all 19 local authority areas involved in a government-funded pilot of evidence-based parenting programmes (‘Parenting Early Intervention Pathfinder’) (Lindsay, Davis, Band, Cullen, Cullen, Strand, Hasluck, Evans, Stewart-Brown, 2008b). The research focused on professional views about school involvement in the delivery of three parenting programmes: Triple P (Sanders, Markie-Dadds & Turner, 2003), Incredible Years (Webster-Stratton & Hancock, 1998) and Strengthening Families, Strengthening Communities (Steele, Marigna, Tello & Johnston, 2000). The paper also refers to relevant findings about English school involvement in a range of other types of parenting support (Lindsay, Davis, Strand, Cullen, Band, Cullen, Davis, Hasluck, Evans, Stewart-Brown, 2009).

The research questions were:

· In what ways, and to what extent, were schools involved?

· Why did some schools choose to be involved and others not?

· What were the barriers and facilitators of school involvement?

· What were the benefits of school involvement and for whom?

The paper interprets the findings in the light of systems theory (Bronfenbrenner, 1979; McCartney, 1999) and theory about professional-family partnership (Davis, Day, Bidmead, 2002) and parental involvement in parenting support (McCurdy and Daro, 2001).

Method

Within a qualitative case study methodology, semi-structured telephone interviews were held with 19 local authority officers, 38 parenting group facilitators and 24 school senior managers. The interviewees were chosen from all those involved in a wider study (Lindsay and others, 2008) because they had experience of school involvement in parenting support. The interviews were recorded with permission, transcribed and analysed thematically using themes structured in to the interview questions (drawn from existing literature) and new themes generated by the interviewees

Expected Outcomes

The research found that the involvement of schools in parenting support was part of local strategy, supported by government policies. There was variation in how school leaders responded to the national and local encouragement to become involved in the delivery of evidence-based parenting programmes. The interviewees reported practical and attitudinal barriers to some schools’ involvement but also willing participation from others, bringing clear benefits to schools and, in their view, to parents. The research concluded that schools had an important, positive contribution to make to parenting support but that parenting support should not only be delivered through schools; school involvement worked best alongside delivery through other community partners. English national policy and the supportive local infrastructure around parenting programmes arose in part from Council of Europe recommendations. Comparisons will be made with the role of schools in how these recommendations were implemented in other European countries such as Norway (Ogden, Forgatch, Askeland, Patterson, Bullock, 2005), which also developed a national approach, and Spain, where government support has taken different forms, including the commissioning of the development of a Spanish parenting programme, El desarrollo de competancias emocionales, educativas y parentales (Martínez González, 2009).

References

Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The Ecology of Human Development. London: Harvard University Press. Davis, H., Day, C. & Bidmead, C. (2002). Working in Partnership with Parents: The Parent Adviser Model. London: Harcourt Assessment. Lindsay, G., Band, S., Cullen, M.A., Cullen, S. (2008a). Parenting Early Intervention Pathfinder Evaluation: Additional Study of the Involvement of Extended Schools. Research Report DCSF-RW036. London: DCSF. Lindsay, G., Davis, H., Band, S., Cullen, M.A., Cullen, S., Strand, S., Hasluck, C., Evans, R., Stewart-Brown, S. (2008b). Parenting Early Intervention Pathfinder Evaluation. Research Report DCSF-RW054. London: DCSF. Lindsay, G., Davis, H., Strand, S., Cullen, M.A., Band, S., Cullen, S., Davis, L., Hasluck, C., Evans, R., Stewart-Brown, S. (2009). Parent Support Advisor Pilot Evaluation: Final Report. Research Report DCSF-RR151. London: DCSF. Lindsay, G., Strand, S., Cullen, M.A., Cullen, S., Band, S., Davis, H., Conlon, G., Barlow, J., Evans, R. (2011) Parenting Early Intervention Programme Evaluation. Research Report DFE-RR121(a). London: DFE. Martínez González, R.A. (2009), El desarrollo de competancias emocionales, educativas y parentales. Madrid: Ministerio de Sanidad y Política Social. McCartney, E. (1999). ‘Scoping and hoping: the provision of speech and language therapy services for children with special educational needs’, British Journal of Special Education, 26, 4, 196-200. [summarises her systems framework] McCurdy, K. and Daro, D. (2001). Parent involvement in family support programs: an integrated theory’, Family Relations, 50, 2, 113-121. Ogden, Terje; Forgatch, Marion S.; Askeland, Elisabeth; Patterson, Gerald D.; Bullock, Bernadette, M.; (2005) 'Implementation of Parent Management Training at the National Level: the Case of Norway', Journal of Social Work Practice, 19 (3), 317-329

Author Information

Mairi Ann Cullen (presenting / submitting)

University of Warwick

CEDAR

Coventry

Stephen Cullen

University of Warwick, United Kingdom

Geoff Lindsay

University of Warwick, United Kingdom

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