A review of parental engagement in parenting interventions and strategies to promote it
| Pages | 29-40 |
| Published date | 01 April 2006 |
| Date | 01 April 2006 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/17466660200600004 |
| Author | Alina Morawska,Matthew Sanders |
| Subject Matter | Education,Health & social care,Sociology |
29
Journal of Children’s Services
Volume 1 Issue 1 April 2006
©Pavilion Publishing (Brighton) Ltd
Abstract
Despite the importance of increasing engagement and minimising attrition and drop-out in parenting
interventions, there is a paucity of empirical evidence examining factors related to engagement and
participation. The range of factors examined in relation to engagement is generally limited in scope and
variety, focusing on variables of convenience rather than utilising a theoretically-driven approach.
The aim of this article is to review the factors related to parental engagement with interventions and to
describe strategies and implications for improving engagement with parenting interventions. Several policy
and practice implications are identified: (1) Poor parental engagement may threaten or compromise the
capacity of parenting programmes to deliver valued outcomes. Viable engagement strategies need to be a
corepartof prevention and early intervention parenting programmes; (2) Agencies delivering parenting
services need a proactiveengagement strategy,which includes strategies to prevent drop-out, as well as
strategies to actively respond to parental disengagement; (3) Research is needed to test the efficacy and
robustness of different engagement enhancement strategies. Empirical tests areneeded to test the
effectiveness of different engagement strategies in order to ensurethat the most efficient, cost-effective and
efficacious approach is used in order to engage parents. Investment of research effort to improve parental
engagement is likely to haveahigh yield in terms of programme efficiency,utility and cost effectiveness.
Weconclude that research examining how to improve engagement and decrease non-completion is needed
to strengthen the population level value of parenting programmes as preventive interventions.
Key words
parental engagement; parenting interventions; non-completion; child behaviour problems
1The University of
Queensland
The quality of parenting received is critical to children
developing into self-sufficient, resourceful adults (eg,
Vimpani, Patton & Hayes, 2002). Many interventions
have been developed to assist parents in their role
and to help prevent the development of conduct and
emotional problems in children. Of the available
parenting interventions, behavioural family
interventions (BFI) based on social learning models
(eg, Patterson, 1982) have the strongest empirical
support. BFI aim to effect change in children’s
behaviour and adjustment by modifying aspects of
the family environment that maintain and reinforce a
child’s problem behaviours (Sanders, 1992). BFI has
documented efficacy, both as a treatment for clinical
populations (eg, Sanders et al,2000a), and as a
population level preventive intervention (eg, Zubrick
et al,2005), delivered either universally or to high-
risk populations.
When parenting programmes are delivered as
universal, population prevention programmes, a
number of factors limit their utility. Epidemiological
surveys show that relatively few parents
(approximately 14%) participate in any form of parent
education and exposure to evidence-based
intervention is lower (Sanders et al,1999). When
parents do participate in parenting interventions the
Areview of parental engagement
in parenting interventions and
strategies to promote it
Alina Morawska1and Matthew R Sanders1
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