A Community-Based Parenting Skill Development Program
Across the United States, countless children and adolescents experienced myriad difficulties in coping with environmental and familial stresses; similarly, parents themselves often struggle to provide their dependent children with the structures, support, nurturing, care and discipline that are all so vital to proper development (Lee, 1994). Shepherd and Rose (1995) noted that primary among the critical factors which must be put into play to ensure that children succeed in mastering the tasks confronting them in society, in school, and in life as a whole is parental efficacy. For families and communities identified as at risk for the development of life-damaging problems (e.g., crime and delinquency, drug abuse, academic failure or school dropout, teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, unemployment and poverty, and other social ills), community-based interventions designed to enhance parenting skills are an important element in the social service delivery system (Lee, 1994).
Parental skills are indeed crucial to the development and achievement of dependent children. Simultaneously, many parents are themselves poorly prepared to be self-sufficient, productive members of their communities รป individuals capable not only of rearing children effectively, but also capable of finding and retaining gainful employment, eliminating welfare or public assistance dependency, and taking control of their own lives in the face of personal and social deficits (Saleebey, 1998). Because this is the case, social service and counseling professional are increasingly challenged to develop effective multimodal programming and interventions that have the capacity to assist parents in developing the strengths, resources, skills and attitudes or behaviors that can result in significant improvements in the quality of family and interpersonal life.
The present study is a response to the...