Engaging parents
Welcome to the Engaging parents learning pathway. This pathway is designed for a wide range of practitioners including those working in services focused on infants and children, and services focused on parents and carers, through to those working specifically with parents experiencing mental illness.
Everyone has a role to play in supporting children’s mental health and development. Even if you work in an adult-focused service, there are lots of things you can do to buffer children from the impacts of adult adversities.
Strong, stable relationships with caring adults form the foundation for children’s healthy development and lifelong wellbeing. Practitioners can ensure parents are supported to make, and sustain, changes to best meet the needs of their children by regularly asking about children’s wellbeing as part of their work.
This pathway covers a range of strategies designed to ensure the children of the adults you work with receive the support they need to grow and thrive. They are designed to develop your awareness of how adult issues can potentially impact children, and how child-aware practice can benefit both you and the family.
The courses explore different approaches for implementing child-aware practice in your organisation or service. They include strategies for making conversations about children’s wellbeing a routine part of your practice. By supporting parents in their parenting role, you are giving them the tools they need to in turn support their children’s mental health.
Learning outcomes
As you progress through this learning pathway you will build your understanding and skills regarding:
- children’s social and emotional wellbeing when working with adults who are parents
- a prevention and early intervention framework to support children’s mental health
- the history and context of parents' and children's problems and family strengths, resilience and know-how
- placing the child at the centre of all decisions and interactions
- how experiences of disadvantage, adversity and trauma contribute to children’s mental health
- opportunities to conduct child-aware conversations with parent-clients about their children’s mental health and wellbeing
- using brief, focused interactions to engage with parents who experience mental illness
- applying the PERCS Conversation Guide to your work with clients
- incorporating the PERCS domains in a child’s life into your conversations with parent-clients about their children
- awareness of historical and contextual factors impacting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities
- understand intergenerational trauma and its impact on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities
- demonstrate essential prerequisites and practical skills for talking with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander parents about complex trauma; and
- identify the broad range of options that may be required to support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander parents experiencing complex trauma.