Home > Conference Calendar > 13th National Conference on Child Abuse and Neglect > Presentations Abstracts > P.S. I LOVE YOU AND P.S. I LOVE YOU . . . MORE AN ATTITUDE-BASED CURRICULUM FOR FACILITATING PARENT SUPPORT GROUPS

P.S. I LOVE YOU AND P.S. I LOVE YOU . . . MORE AN ATTITUDE-BASED CURRICULUM FOR FACILITATING PARENT SUPPORT GROUPS

SKILL SEMINAR E

Irene Clouse Newlon
Ruben Castaneda
People Skills, Inc.
PO Box 13752
El Paso, TX 79913

P.S. I LOVE YOU AND P.S. I LOVE YOU…MORE AN ATTITUDE-BASED CURRICULUM FOR FACILITATING PARENT SUPPORT GROUPS

This seminar is unique in that it offers attendees a refreshing alternative to the standard curricula available for conducting traditional parenting "classes." The curricula is available in both English and Spanish, parent materials are written at or below a 5th grade reading level, facilitators are generally grassroots, and lesson plans are non-sequential/non-developmental, which allows parents to miss a session without missing the concepts.

The session will focus on three major elements:

1.  A description of the "P.S. I Love You" and "P.S. I Love You . . . More" curriculum and its unique ability to provide an atmosphere for change. Included will be a review of this user-friendly curriculum and research conducted over the past five years on its effectiveness in working with families who traditionally have been hard to recruit and engage. During the past three years, the presenters have trained over 2500 grassroots parent facilitators in both English and Spanish who have implemented support groups throughout the United States with outstanding results.

2.  How attitude-based experiential parenting activities can engage parents who are at-risk and/or court ordered to attend parenting sessions. This section will discuss how to overcome the difficulties of recruiting, retaining, and influencing those parents who are most in need of more effective and appropriate discipline and interaction techniques to use with their children. The session will discuss and demonstrate activities which help parents decide "intrinsically" that they may need to change their behavior in order to change the child's behavior.

3.  How to be a facilitator versus a teacher and the importance of process versus product in conducting parent support groups. This section will help demonstrate the effectiveness of becoming a part of the group rather than the leader of the group and how the "P.S." process can insure participation, reflection, and long range change in parenting behavior. Participants will practice facilitating activities included in the books.

Conference attendees will leave this seminar with concrete ideas and activities they can use in conducting parent support groups and/or implementing parent support groups in their communities.

Updated on February 24, 2010