The Nurturing Program
The Nurturing Program is TRAUMA-INFORMED and has an over 30-year history of being:
Evidence-Based - Recognized by the National Registry for Evidence-Based Programs and Practices (NREPP), Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), Center for Substance Abuse (CSAP), Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), and Child Abuse Prevention Programs (CAPP)
Competency-Based and Flexible - Each lesson is sequenced and designed to correspond to the developmental learning process. The program is flexible in lesson dosage; the number of lessons offered corresponds to the needs of the families while maintaining fidelity to the program’s model and philosophy.
Family-Focused - Involving parents, grandparents, children, teens, and other family members when appropriate; current research indicates family-based programs provide the most robust results and have the greatest impact on changing family dynamics
Relationship-based - The most important relationship is between the service provider and the participant; everything else is based on this relationship and is fundamental to the change process and healthy functioning.
Tailor-Made for implementation in various settings such as: schools, residential treatment centers, prisons, shelters, homes, and communities.
Multicultural to meet the diverse learning needs of families. There are programs available for families in substance abuse recovery, families with special learning needs and health challenges, military families, and families with ethnic diversity, including Hispanic, Haitian, Arab, Chinese, Somali and Hmong.
Levels of Prevention
Primary Prevention Programs - Utilized in offering community-based education classes to enhance Nurturing Parenting Skills; for parents who may need minimal parenting support
Secondary Prevention Programs - Utilized with high risk families to curb the dysfunction and begin replacing old, hurtful parenting patterns with healthier, nurturing patterns
Tertiary Prevention Programs - Utilized with families in who are in the child welfare system, mental health system, or are referred by the court system for long-term treatment
Six Protective Factors
The Nurturing Parenting Programs meet and exceed the Six Protective Factors identified by the U.S. government for the prevention and treatment of child abuse and neglect:
1. Nurturing and attachment
2. Knowledge of parenting and child development
3. Parental resilience
4. Social connections
5. Concrete supports for parents
6. Social and emotional competence of children
The Adult-Adolescent Parenting Inventory (AAPI-2) is the most widely used parenting inventory in the nation. Its use can assist parent educators to develop effective interventions for the prevention and treatment of child abuse and neglect.
Evaluation of Nurturing Parenting Programs
The Nurturing Programs utilizes an evidence-based evaluation,the Adult-Adolescent Parenting Inventory (AAPI-2), which was designed to assess the parenting and child rearing attitudes of adult and adolescent parent and pre-parent populations. Based on the known parenting and child rearing behaviors of abusive parents, responses on the AAPI-2 provide an index of risk (high, medium, low) for practicing abusive and neglecting parenting and child rearing behaviors. The AAPI-2 is useful in assessing individual strengths and weaknesses involved in child rearing and can be used to create effective parenting interventions that are designed to build positive, nurturing parenting behaviors.
Responses to the AAPI-2 provide an index of risk in five specific parenting and child rearing behaviors:
· Construct A – Appropriate expectations
· Construct B – Empathy
· Construct C – Alternatives to corporal punishment
· Construct D – Appropriate family roles
· Construct E – Promoting power and independence
The AAPI-2 is the revised and re-normed version of the original version first developed in 1979. Over 30 years of research has gone into refining the AAPI-2.
This research indicates the following:
· Abusive parents express significantly (p<.001) more abusive attitudes than non-abusive parents.
· Males and male adolescents, regardless of status (abusive or non-abusive) express significantly (p<.001) more abusive parenting attitudes than females.
· Adolescents with histories of being abused express significantly (p<.001) more abusive parenting attitudes than non-abused adolescents.
· Each of the five parenting constructs of the AAPI-2, forming the five sub-scales of the inventory, show significant diagnostic and discriminatory validity. That is, responses to the inventory discriminate between the parenting behaviors of known abusive parents and the behaviors of non-abusive parents. These findings hold true for abused adolescents and non-abused adolescents.
The functional purpose of assessment is to gather information for decision makers. Families, professionals in the helping fields, agency administrators and funding sources are typical decision makers that rely on information to assist them in providing appropriate services.
Assessment data can help professionals in several ways:
· Assessment data can assist professionals and court systems in deciding if parents and/or foster parents have achieved an acceptable level of parenting competence. This is of critical importance in placement or re-unification decisions.
· Assessment data can also determine if the instruction or program need to be modified to meet the needs of the families being served.
· Funding sources make gathering research and evaluation data on the effectiveness of program mandatory for future or continued funding. Agencies who gather assessment data stand a much higher probability in receiving funding.
Nurturing Program Facilitator Training
Through participation in the Nurturing Program training, professionals and paraprofessionals learn how to:
1. Increase parents’ and children’s empathy as a means to decrease reactivity and family violence
2. Teach parents how to meet their needs while at the same time understanding and effectively meeting their children’s needs
3. Equip parents with skills to discipline with dignity and respect
4. Facilitate and support parents’ and children’s growth in emotional regulation and self-awareness, as well as that of the professionals and paraprofessionals in the front line
5. Effectively utilize techniques and strategies with the most challenging behaviors (child, youth, parent, staff)
Training is available in three forms:
1. Attending a local training put on by trainers and open to the community ($350 per registrant)
2. Hosting trainer(s) at your agency and open it to the public ($350 per registrant, minimum attendance requirement)
3. Hosting trainer(s) for your agency exclusively (call for rates)
The next adolescent-focused facilitator training is taking place in Austin, Texas on May 31st – June 2nd, 2017.
To register, please go to www.texasnurturingcenter.org.
Natalie Beck, DSW, LCSW
National Trainer and Consultant – Austin, Texas
512-785-1180
Creating a Worldwide Culture of Nurturing