Program Goals

The goals of ABCD Parenting Young Adolescents are:

• Maximize adolescent children's wellbeing and resilience by strengthening family relationships and cohesion
• Build stronger connections between parent and adolescent
• Develop effective communication between parent and adolescent
• Encourage acceptance amongst parents toward their adolescent child
• Help parents develop problem-solving skills, with a particular focus on dealing with interpersonal conflicts
• Promote the use of effective and fair limit-setting (e.g., boundaries, rules)
• Promote effective and appropriate monitoring and supervision of adolescent
• Help parents develop approaches and practices of self-care (e.g., recreation)

Logic Model

The program representative did not provide information about a Logic Model for ABCD Parenting Young Adolescents.

Essential Components

The essential components of ABCD Parenting Young Adolescents include:

• Core content:
• Help participants better understand challenges associated with the childhood-adulthood transition
• Help participants identity core parenting goals and establish action plans to reach goals
• Help participants develop an appreciation of the importance of connection as a means to develop stronger parent-child relationships and bolster skills around effective problem-solving
• Help participants develop effective communication skills
• Help participants understand the benefit of involving their adolescent child in problem-solving and decision-making
• Help participants effectively use strategies to set rules and boundaries around their own and their adolescent child's behavior
• Help participants develop appropriate skills and approaches to dealing with parent-child conflict
• Help parents develop strategies around dealing with adolescent risk-taking
• Encourage parental self-care
• ABCD is culturally and linguistically sensitive:
• Collaborative facilitator-parent nature of ABCD encourages facilitators to understand the values, beliefs, perspectives, and aspirations of the parent
• Program content related to parent experiences, which can help overcome barriers around understanding unfamiliar information, issues, or activities
• Exploring cultural perspectives of parents to help tailor program delivery that is more culturally appropriate
• During all sessions, the following are emphasized:
• Group discussions between program participants and program facilitators (e.g., around program content, personal experiences)
• Various exercises to help participants better understand and practice strategies, skills, or techniques taught throughout sessions
• Joint collaborative approach between facilitator and participant with respect to all aspects of the program
• Role of Facilitators:
• Provide encouragement, constructive feedback, and praise to participants
• Build collaborative relationships with participants, and help develop meaningful tailored goals for participants to reach
• Encourage participants to complete group-based exercise and in-home activities as a means to better realize identified goals
• Avoid advice-giving, and focus more around providing ideas and options
• Are nonjudgmental, understanding, and optimistic
• Use active listening and aim to understand the participant's point of view
• Help participants to manage setbacks
• Delivery:
• Groups of 8-12 parents, in 150-minute sessions
• 4 weekly sessions
• Can be adjusted to 6 weekly sessions (120 minutes each) which allows for longer consideration of content material or issues and more time for participants to practice skills or strategies under the facilitator's supervision.
• An ABCD-plus version is also available (over 6 sessions), and is designed as a preventative program for families presenting with early warning signs (e.g., high amounts of conflict or adolescent risky behaviors) with a focus around managing conflict and restoring damaged relationships. Most families would need to complete the ABCD program before commencing the plus version. However, it must be noted that the ABCD-plus version is not described further in this application (aside for the description above). Also, studies included in this application pertain to the ABCD program only.

Program Delivery

Parent/Caregiver Services

ABCD Parenting Young Adolescents directly provides services to parents/caregivers and addresses the following:

• Parents, where the family has yet to experience difficulties and the parent or adolescent has no learning or development problems; the parent or adolescent has no mental illness; the adolescent has no medical condition; or adolescent is not engaged with specialist services (e.g., psychological or psychiatric treatment)

Recommended Intensity:

2 program delivery options: 4 sessions, once per week, with a duration of 150 minutes per session; or 6 sessions, once per week, with a duration of 120 minutes per session

Recommended Duration:

4 or 6 weeks

Delivery Setting

This program is typically conducted in a(n):

• Community-based Agency / Organization / Provider

Homework

ABCD Parenting Young Adolescents includes a homework component:

The following is based on the 4-session delivery version, with homework tasks assigned at the end of sessions 1 to 3.

• Session 1 homework task: Start a home diary and monitor problems or issues between parent and adolescent throughout the week
• Session 2 homework task: Choose several goals around addressing problems between parent and adolescent, identify actions (e.g., use active listening) to help reach goals and monitor progress toward reaching goals
• Session 3 homework task: Choose an issue between parent and adolescent, then have a problem-solving discussion by using approaches and skills developed during session 3

Languages

ABCD Parenting Young Adolescents has materials available in languages other than English:

Arabic, Macedonian, Spanish, Turkish, Vietnamese

For information on which materials are available in these languages, please check on the program's website or contact the program representative (contact information is listed at the bottom of this page).

Resources Needed to Run Program

The typical resources for implementing the program are:

• Ideally, sessions can be held at community agencies (e.g., neighborhood house, library, school, community center)

Materials and resources needed at the venue are:

• Copies of parent handouts
• Overhead projector and screen or blank white wall
• Whiteboard (or butcher's paper) and markers
• Name tags and pens
• Large enough room/space for approximately 15 chairs
• Chairs (enough for number of participants) and tables

Manuals and Training

Prerequisite/Minimum Provider Qualifications

No specific qualifications are necessary. However, it is recommended that potential providers have an educational background and/or experience in human services or mental health (e.g., undergraduate or Masters of Human Services, Social Work, Psychology, Mental Health).

It is recommended that facilitators are knowledgeable and trained in group processes prior to program training and delivery.

Manual Information

There is a manual that describes how to deliver this program.

Training Information

There is training available for this program.

Training Contact:

• Parenting Research Centre
  www.parentingrc.org.au
  info@parentingrc.org.au
  phone: +613 8660 3500

Training Type/Location:

For training, contact the Parenting Research Centre (details above). Trainers can travel to specific agencies or organizations around the world to deliver training.

Number of days/hours:

2-day workshop training; approximately 8 hours per day

Relevant Published, Peer-Reviewed Research

Additional References

No reference materials are currently available for ABCD Parenting Young Adolescents.