Many children who enter the care system and are subsequently adopted have had exposure to a range of potentially traumatising experiences including domestic violence, abuse, neglect and loss of key caregivers. There are also an increasingly high number of adopted children presenting with the impact of intrauterine exposure to alcohol, drugs and…

During imprisonment, fathers are separated from their families and contact is limited. When delivering a prison based parenting programme, providing an opportunity to rehearse newly acquired parenting skills can be key for mastering the performance of these skills and using these skills to improve father-child relationships. This paper takes an…

The Norwegian Correctional Service offers a program called "Fathers in Prison", aimed at helping incarcerated fathers to have better contact with their children during their sentence and after release. On the basis of 38 semi-structured interviews with prisoners who have completed the program, we would argue that there is reason to…

The prognosis for children with early-onset conduct disorder is poor. Conduct disorder also has a social cost for families and communities, and an economic cost for society through the increased use of health, education, social, legal and detention services. In this study, the Incredible Years (IY) BASIC programme was delivered to parents of…

This community pilot study was designed to evaluate a small group intervention, Right From The Start (RFTS), in terms of the benefits it provides to adolescent mothers specifically. The effectiveness of the programme was examined in the areas of maternal sensitivity, parenting confidence, parenting stress, and postnatal depression. RFTS has been…

The subject of engaging mothers in appropriate family support continues to be debated and this paper explores the complex factors that influenced one mother's willingness to accept support. In addition, it captures how her family support worker built and sustained a "help-providing" and "help-receiving" relationship despite the…

Children who are looked after experience significantly higher levels of social, emotional and behavioural difficulties than children who live with their family of origin. Such difficulties tend to be pervasive and can have detrimental consequences for placement stability, and ultimately for the child's ability to reach their potential. Government…

Parenting programmes are effective interventions for preventing and treating conduct problems in young children. Up to 20% of children in disadvantaged areas have conduct disorder. Recent government initiatives such as targeting early years services to designated disadvantaged Flying Start areas in Wales have resulted in increased nursery-care…

This article draws on results of an evaluation of Sure Start activities in an area of South Wales in 2004, focusing in particular on measurements of improvements to child development and measurements of benefits to parents. The article reports on the methods that were used to collect relevant data and examines the problems associated with linking…

Parenting programmes have been provided to a wide range of child and parent groups across a number of countries, but are they effective? This aim of this paper is to examine the findings from a number of systematic reviews that summarise the best available research evidence on the impact of these programmes on a range of parental and child…