Investing in Parenting Education: A Critical Review of Policy and Provision in England

Abstract

Parenting education has been given an increasingly important role in government policies to address social exclusion. This paper examines the basis for investing in parenting programmes and reviews the various different types of parenting education provision. It discusses the evidence on the effectiveness of multi-component and group parenting programmes in modifying parent-child relationships and the outcomes for children and young people. The paper concludes that while such programmes appear to produce beneficial outcomes, it is important that they remain linked to a strategy that does not individualise the causes of social exclusion.

Digital generations, but not as we know them

“…In the last decades, there has been a discussion about how parents have applied a more permissive parenthood, which has intensified asometimes friend-like -relationship with children (Churchill and Clarke, 2010).…”

Parenting support: Another gender-related policy illusion in Europe?

“…While not all of these were solely or even explicitly oriented to parenting, they had standards and practices of parenting either as an originating concern or as a priority which emerged over the course of their operation (Churchill & Clarke, 2010;Clarke, 2006;Eisenstadt, 2011;Lewis, 2011).…”

Evaluating the impact of Pyramid for Parents courses in North Town in 2009/10: listening to the views of mothers and fathers of primary school children

“…At the same time, an overwhelming majority of studies and reviews of studies, using randomised control trials or at least one standardised instrument to measure outcomes, suggests that parenting programmes delivered in schools and in other settings have positive impacts for both parents and children (see, for example, Zellman & Waterman, 1998;Barlow, 1999;Webster-Stratton, 1999;Dimond & Hyde, 2000;Barlow et al, 2002, 2004. Ghate & Ramella, 2002Scott, 2003;Barlow & Parsons, 2003National Institute for Health & Clinical Excellence, 2005;Manby, 2005;Lundahl et al, 2006;Dretzke et al, 2009;Churchill & Clarke, 2010). Barlow (1999), on the basis of a systematic review of programmes, estimated that 4% of the parent population in the United Kingdom had attended a parent education programme.…”