Parents Together Community Course

The Parents Together Community Course is produced in partnership between the Early Learning Initiative, National College of Ireland and the Parents Plus Charity, Mater Hospital. Parents Together is based on the highly successful Parents Plus Early Years Programme and is designed to bring parents together to discuss their relationships with their children in a community setting. DVD-based case studies are used as the starting point for discussion in the group sessions. The aims of the Parents Together Community Course are to support parents in: 

• Encouraging their children's learning
• Reducing behavioural problems
• Promoting children’s self-esteem
• And fostering and maintaining good parent-child relationships. 

The Parents Together Community Course is a six week programme. Each week two topics are introduced, one positive parenting topic and one positive discipline topic. For example, in week 1 the positive parenting topic is “tuning into your children” and the positive behaviour topic is “pressing the pause button”. Each weekly session starts with a “review of the week” where each parent gets an opportunity to talk about how they got on at home trying out the new learning. The discussion is parent focused and strengths based. Anyone seeking to become an accredited Parents Together facilitator can follow the Parents Plus accreditation process. Guidance and supervision on accreditation will be provided by the Early Learning Initiative.  

Facilitators Training

The Early Learning Initiative offer two-day facilitator training. Training dates for 2010-2011 will be updated during the summer months.

Costs

• Materials (Facilitators manual, DVD and 2 parent booklets) set at €450
• Two-day facilitator training set at €300
• Individual parent booklets set at €10
• Accreditation costs set at:

€350 for administration charge (Parent Plus) and

€130 per person for an accreditation support/consultation day.

For more information, please contact Catriona Flood on 01 4498635 or email cflood@ncirl.ie.

Facilitation of Parenting Course

The Early Learning Initiative has trained facilitators available to run 6 week Parents Together Community Courses in the Dublin area.  For more information and costs contact Catriona Flood on cflood@ncirl.ie or on 01 4498635.