Good Friday morning everyone. How was your week? I am sure we are all looking forward to the weekend.
As we set things up for this week's "Food For Thought Friday", we want to examine an area which was excluded from the original ACE study of 1998 - that is, the consideration of poverty. It has been an area of criticism of the original study especially where researchers desiring to replicate it want to address the needs of persons living in cramped urban conditions.
There is a 2017 study done by researchers Davielle Lakind and Mark S. Atkins of the University of Illinois at Chicago, Institute for Juvenile Research that has suggested novel ways to promote protective factors to parents living in poverty. Their work is published as "Promoting positive parenting for families in poverty: New directions for improved reach and engagement" in Children and Youth Services Review (Volume 89, June 2018, Pages 34-42). [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2018.04.019]
Abstract
"An extensive literature documents the numerous interrelated stressors families in poverty face, and associated risks for children's well-being. Positive parenting holds tremendous promise as a counterbalance to these risks; thus, evidence-based parenting programs represent one of the most important approaches in the arsenal of services for children and youth in poverty. However, logistic and perceptual barriers with particular relevance for low-income families contending with multiple stressors prevent many parents from engaging in supportive services.
Applying an ecological public health model, we present evidence for innovative service models from within and outside of the parenting literature that provide support to individuals and families in communities of poverty, highlighting aspects of service models that align with the needs of high poverty families.
Specifically, we review evidence that parenting programs may reach and engage more families if services are
1) led by fellow community members to align with cultural norms and multiply opportunities for service provision;
2) embedded in key settings such as homes and schools with flexibility to bridge settings;
3) aligned with the goals and needs of those settings, and bundled with other services to address families' pressing needs, thereby taking a “family-centered” form; and
4) offered through multiple formats, from traditionally formatted sequenced curricula to informal conversations infused with core parenting principles.
Expanding the workforces, settings, intervention foci, and formats that can support parents' adoption of positive parenting practices may reduce the research to practice gap for some of our nation's most vulnerable children and families."
We see these examples and suggestions for greater success with parenting programmes as relevant to our Caribbean societies where trust of outsiders among those who are financially disadvantaged can be a barrier to receiving services.
In some of our jurisdictions where there has been an influx of Venezuelan migrants or where there are Indigenous peoples, having culturally competent facilitators will be more effective than attempting to have others attempt to serve the needs of the migrant or indigenous population.
What are your thoughts? Ruminate on the suggestions over the weekend and see how they may help to improve your programme development.
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