Investigators
Yasmin Harman-Smith
Project description
Many families experience challenges in raising children, particularly when they also face issues such as family and domestic violence, parental mental illness, social isolation and stress and when children have special needs such as disability, mental health and behavioural difficulties. To support families at risk of experiencing child abuse and neglect, the South Australian government have implemented a raft of initiatives that support parents to raise their children with confidence and skill.
In 2015 the State Government purchased a parenting training and resource package for use with families with the objective of increasing parenting skills in an attempt to reduce child protection involvement of vulnerable families in South Australia (SA). The program was the Positive Parenting Program (known as Triple P), which can be delivered to families in a variety of formats and intensities.
In 2016, the Australian Centre for Child Protection (ACCP) and The Kids Research Institute Australia (The Kids) were engaged to evaluate the implementation and impact of Triple P in South Australia. In SA, Triple P seminars were made available to any family who would like to attend and these were advertised through schools, community centres and libraries.
The evaluation identified the value of the program for families who were experiencing routine parenting challenges. For families facing additional challenges, they told us that while the information they received was good, implementing the strategies wasn’t always possible, and that they required other supports and services.
This project was undertaken when Institute researcher Yasmin Harman-Smith formed part of the Fraser Mustard Centre, a previous collaboration between researchers at The Kids Research Institute Australia and policy makers at the South Australian Department for Education, aimed to improve research translation.
For further information about the project and its findings, contact Yasmin Harman-Smith.
Funders of the project
Department for Education, South Australia
External collaborators
Australian Centre for Child Protection (ACCP)