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Exploring Together is a proven, effective group program. The program comprises separate concurrent groups for children in primary school and their parents, followed by a combined parent-child interaction group. The current research project aims to measure the effectiveness of the child component and the parent component when conducted as stand-alone programs. These components have been named Confident Kids and Together Parenting.
Programs are evaluated at no cost to the participants. Exploring Together provides schools and community agencies with questionnaires. All participating schools and agencies are provided with an individual report of their results.
Confident Kids
Confident Kids is a school/community based program for children with challenging behaviour. The program is suitable for children who are 6-14 years of age. Confident Kids is targeted at children exhibiting any of the following types of problem behaviours:
- impulsive, aggressive or bullying behaviour
- withdrawn, anxious or depressed
- problematic peer relationships.
Confident Kids focuses on developing children's social skills and reducing their problematic behaviour (especially if antisocial).
Content
The Confident Kids program is designed to be run in schools or community agencies. It involves 6-10 children participating in ten consecutive weeks of group work. The program also includes options for parent meetings, teacher meetings and post-group family interviews for evaluation and feedback.
The group work focuses on teaching children:
- anger/anxiety management
- pro-social skills
- perspective taking
- conversation skills
- problem-solving
- affect recognition
- assertion skills
- decision-making
- social perception.
The aim of the group is to reduce children's aggressive and/or withdrawn behaviours whilst improving peer interactions. This is done through group activities such as games, stories and role play.
Together Parenting
Together Parenting is a 10-week program for parents who want to strengthen their family relationships and promote wellbeing in their children. The program helps parents enhance their relationship with their child(ren) and learn more effective parenting strategies for managing behaviour. Each group session lasts for two hours, and participants are expected to attend each week. During the group parents develop their understanding of developmental issues underlying children's behaviour. Parents also receive training in problem-solving and child behaviour management.
The program can be conducted in schools or community agencies. Together Parenting is effective with families that live in areas of low socioeconomic status or disadvantaged areas, and it is suitable for use with many different cultural groups (when conducted by appropriately trained professionals).
Benefit for families
- Impoves child's behaviour.
- Improves family functioning.
- Help form healthier families.
- Enhances generalisation of improvements to other siblings.
- Reduces risk factors for self-harming or other-harming behaviours in later childhood.
Benefit for schools
- Facilitates earlier identification and effective intervention for children at risk of developing behaviour problems.
- Reduces children's 'at risk' behaviour.
- Provides practical, effective support that parents can easily access (many families will not seek help elsewhere).
- Improves home/school relationship.
- Helps form or strengthens links with local community agencies if school collaborates in the program.
- Decreases class disruption.
- Decreases bullying and other aggressive behaviours.
- Facilitates eneralisation of change to other siblings leading to a potential decrease in problematic behaviour for future or younger students
- Provides opportunity to work cooperatively with nearby schools.
Benefit for the community
- Reduces the prevalence of children at risk of developing serious emotional or behavioural problems
Content
A group of parents meet weekly for a two-hour group session for 10 consecutive weeks. Groups are made up of parents of primary school-aged children, usually one of which is the target child to whom interventions and behaviour management strategies are directed. Depending on the skill of the leader, groups can be limited to parents whose 'target' children are all within a three-year age span, or the group can be composed of parents of primary school children of any age. Couples are invited to attend the program.
Through discussion this group aims to assist parents to:
- help their children develop social skills with peers
- enhance their children?s self-esteem
- enhance their own parenting practices
- improve parent-child interactions
- deal with personal issues which impact on their parenting
- strengthen family relationships
- reduce their children?s problematic behaviour.
Parents and Adolescents Communicating Together (PACT)
PACT is a group program that teaches adolescents and their parents the skills required for resolving conflict peacefully. The program is designed to be run within community settings or in secondary schools. PACT has two sessions for adolescents (double period each), a parent evening, plus a combined parent/adolescent evening.
PACT focuses on teaching adolescents and parents how to examine the needs and concerns that underlie their disputes or arguments. This technique acknowledges the legitimate needs of adolescents to have increasing responsibility for making choices themselves, and the needs of parents to ensure that their children are safe.
Benefit for adolescents, families and school community
The program is for adolescents and parents who wish to enhance their relationship, practice their communication skills, and learn more effective techniques for problem solving and conflict resolution. One or both parents are invited to attend. The PACT program has benefits for schools, teachers, adolescents, parents and the community.
Schools
To a large extent, ineffective conflict resolution comes about simply because we have never been taught useful ways to handle conflict. The more people are exposed to examples of peaceful conflict resolution, however, the more familiar these strategies will become. It is important, therefore, that effective conflict resolution skills become a valued part of our educational system in order to increase exposure to, and practice in, alternative ways of resolving conflict. Schools have a responsibility to help equip adolescents with skills for adult life.
Secondary school staff
Staff at all levels of the school system can benefit from learning how to resolve conflict more effectively. Staff who are trained in the model are not only better equipped to resolve conflict that involves students, but also bring to the school a new and effective way of dealing with problems at other levels of the school community. Student welfare staff and teachers are trained to teach the model to students in the classroom and also to parents.
Adolescents and their parents
Adolescence is a developmental stage that is often prone to conflict, particularly within families. An important task of adolescence is for teenagers to start separating emotionally from their families. During this process of separation they learn how to cope with being apart from the family and take a responsible role in life. We should therefore expect and welcome the differences between parents and teenagers in terms of their goals, wants and ways of doing things.
As teenagers learn to become independent and mature individuals, the process can be a source of family conflict. Family members need to acknowledge that adolescents have a legitimate need to take responsibility for making choices for themselves, and that parents have a need to ensure that their children are safe. Families need to establish appropriate ways of negotiating and resolving that conflict.
PACT and the school curriculum
The program can be administered by teachers as part of the weekly curriculum. Two double periods, preferably a week apart, is all the time that is needed from the school timetable. The program is designed to be offered to a whole classroom of students whether or not their parents are able to attend the evening sessions. Students whose parents do not participate only attend the classroom sessions.
Content
Sessions 1 and 2 focus on teaching adolescents:
- about different kinds of conflict and common ways of handling conflict
- differences between interest-based, rights-based and power-based conflict resolution
- how to identify their own and the other parties' interests in a dispute
listening skills
- how to manage emotions in a negotiation
- how to generate multiple alternative solutions to a problem using brainstorming skills
- how to set the scene and engage others in conflict resolution.
The parent evening aims to:
- provide information about developmental needs of adolescents
- provide parents with an overview of the conflict resolution model taught to their adolescents.
The parent/adolescent evening aims to:
- help families set the scene for conflict resolution
- provide families with an opportunity to try out conflict resolution skills on a particular issue.
The Wise Ways Model
The conflict resolution model that forms the basis of the PACT program is called the Wise Ways Model. The model is an evidence-based, proven and effective method of resolving conflict and improving relationships between individuals, families, professionals, and even nations!
Over the last ten years this model has been taught to students in primary school, secondary school and at university level. The model is a component of the award winning Exploring Together Program for Adolescents. Books, posters, and a pantomime have been produced based on the model.
The model has been taught to parents as part of the National Illicit Drug Strategy, funded by the Commonwealth Department of Family and Community Services. The Wise Ways model has been included in professional development courses for educators, psychologists, social workers and counsellors.
On an international level, the model has been taken by one of the original authors, Connie Peck, to the United Nations. Diplomatic staff are trained in dispute resolution and peace making in a two week residential course based on the model. Developed by psychologists, the model clearly has practical applications for all people at all stages of life. |
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