Think Parents!

Think Parents!

Putting parents at the heart of parenting support

Ruben Fukkink, Caroline Vink & Nynke Bosscher (Editors)

Think Parents!

Putting parents at the heart of parenting support

Ruben Fukkink, Caroline Vink & Nynke Bosscher (Editors)

ISBN 9789088504969
e-ISBN 9789088505393

NUR 847

© 2014 B.V. SWP Publishers, Amsterdam

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without the written permission of SWP Publishers, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to prosecution and civil claims for damages.

Introduction to ‘Think Parents!’

Parenting support is an important and growing domain in professional practice, research and policy all over Europe. The domain of parenting support is quite broad. It extends from universal prevention to clinical intervention, from attention to promoting and protective factors to risk factors, from professional services to programmes that work with volunteers and peer support, and from attention to the micro-system of an individual family to the broader ‘community’ and the wider macro-system of a country. ‘Parenting support’ is also defined broadly in European policy, and it is directly related to the social dimension of Europe and such policy objectives as those formulated for the Europe 2020 Strategy. Parenting support, for which there is a wide range of definitions (see Daly, 2011; Hermanns, in this publication), emphasises positive parenting, which the Council of Europe has defined as the parental behaviour ensuring the fulfilment of the best interests of the child ‘that is nurturing, empowering, non-violent and provides recognition and guidance which involves setting of boundaries to enable the full development of the child’ (Recommendation Rec 2006:19). This perspective on the parent and the child in the family bestows a pedagogic interpretation upon the policy, with a focus on the parenting-related interactions between parents and children (see ChildONE Europe Secretariat, 2007; Crepaldi et al., 2011; Daly, 2011; Moran, Ghate, & van der Merwe, 2004). The focus of this approach appears to be on the parent, possibly with the intention of providing a better guarantee for the rights of children.

In this publication, authors from across Europe – representing policy, research and practice – describe how they ‘think’ parents. The underlying theme of the parents’ perspective can be found in the contributions from research, in the reflections on current European and national policies on supporting parents and on contributions from the practice of parenting support. Briefly stated, Think Parents! represents the importance of the parents’ perspective in policy, research and practice related to parenting support. Although this parents’ perspective might seem completely obvious, it is not. Research, policy and practice shows that parents do not always have a central role in the process of parenting support. The overall aim of the process is to enable parents to become more secure in their role, to improve their ability to support their children and to create positive circumstances for the well-being of children. In many cases, however, parenting support is organised and delivered within the context of an integrated collaboration of various professionals for parents, but not with them.

Governments approach parents ‘from the top down’, with an established policy agenda. It is not clear whether this agenda actually corresponds to the needs of parents. In many scientific studies on the family and child-rearing, the framework is set by the funder and the researcher. In their work, practitioners must ultimately find a balance between the wishes of the parents and their own professional ideas regarding what the family needs, while increasingly operating within an established programme. Within this active field of tension, parents are often shifted to the background – possibly by accident – even in the context of parenting support. The contributions in this book demonstrate that parents do not necessarily constitute a broad, anonymous target group in established policy, merely a passive respondent in scientific research or an individual client who is but one link, surrounded by an occupational group of various professionals. In this way, each author in this publication indicates how to place parents at the heart of parenting support.

Jo Hermanns (Netherlands) opens the first chapter by describing the landscape of parenting support in Europe, defining parenting support as all activities carried out by professionals, volunteers and members of a network of parents that are focused on influencing the relationships and interactions between parents and children. Western countries are becoming increasingly active in their involvement with the family, based on the desire to optimise parenting through parenting support. In this way, a professional work field has gradually grown up ‘around the family’. According to Hermanns, this family constitutes a private terrain, which ‘outsiders’ should approach with caution. ‘Think Parents!’ is thus advice that should be kept in mind by everyone who is actively involved in policy, research and practice within the area of parenting support.

Katie-Lee Weille (Netherlands), Senior Lecturer on Parenthood and Professional Work with Parents at the University of Applied Sciences Leiden, notes in her contribution that parenthood is a rich, but sometimes ambivalent experience, with both positive and negative features. In this regard, parenthood could be compared to a ride on a roller coaster. A parent has a broader identity that extends beyond that of being a father, mother or caregiver. Nevertheless, research and the current range of programmes offered, lack an appropriately broad and explicit parent perspective. Such a perspective is also lacking in professional training.

Michel Vandenbroeck (Belgium) assigns a new role to the parent in the study of parenting support: the parent as researcher. This role is anything but self-evident in the most prominent effectiveness research, which Vandenbroeck considers as allowing little space for active input from the parent. He therefore calls for involved and reflexive researchers who will allow the parent the opportunity to participate and who will enter the dialogue between parents, researchers and policymakers.

The following contributions to the book include inspiring examples of policy, research and practice in which parents play a prominent role. These examples are from Sweden, Scotland, Spain, Italy, Finland, Denmark, Serbia and, finally, the European organisation Eurochild.

Johanna Anquist (Sweden) provides an overview of Swedish policy that targets all parents with children aged zero to eighteen. The universal, preventive policy in Sweden is carried out in close, local cooperation between all parties. It is interesting to note that this approach appears to be generating benefits. According to Anquist, each Swedish crown that is invested in this type of parenting support amply pays for itself – literally – within one to two years.The contribution by Marion Macleod (Scotland, UK) shows how Scotland has been carrying out a new policy since 2012: the ‘National Parenting Strategy’. Instead of a substantively and geographically fragmented policy, a clear course has now been charted, after consultation with 1500 parents and caregivers. As reported by Macleod, the policy document was ‘only the beginning of the story’, which was followed by various conversations with the target group and by associated PR activities.

María José Rodrigo, Sonia Byrne and Miriam Álvarez (Spain) present an empirical research report demonstrating the effectiveness of a parenting programme designed especially to prevent child abuse. The self-report of the parents clearly reveals that child abuse was reduced amongst the at-risk group from 25% to 5%. This evaluation also examines the effectiveness of working with mixed groups of parents from various backgrounds, as compared to relatively homogeneous parent groups.

In their contribution, Elena Luciano and Monica Guerra (Italy) focus on the preschool sector, placing it within the perspective of civil society. Luciano and Guerra emphasise to readers the importance of working with – and not for – parents during the preschool period. This is no simple task. One tool that contributes to mutual parenting in the childcare centre is extensive documentation of the young child.

Milla Kalliomaa (Finland), director of the Finnish Mannerheim League, uses her contribution to advocate for the role of volunteers in parenting support. The Mannerheim League for Child Welfare is active in half of all municipalities in Finland. This organisation is responsible for 545 ‘Family Cafés’, which are operated through the efforts of approximately 12000 volunteers. Volunteering supplements the Finnish professional circuit, thereby achieving a balance between parents and professionals.

Benedikte Ask Skotte (Denmark), president of the Danish parents’ association, discusses parental involvement in schools. She emphasises the importance of proceeding from the school when working with parents. Skotte stresses the role of the professional training in this regard: teachers (and prospective teachers) should learn how to interact with both children and their parents.

In their contribution, Boris Spasić and Milena Mihajlović (Serbia), who are affiliated with the Centre for Interactive Pedagogy, describe an initiative entitled ‘Parents have a say, too’, which has emerged in several municipalities. One interesting feature is that parents initially had little idea that the initiative centred on them, asking such questions as whether it was their turn and whether they could arrange the programme to their liking.

The contribution by Agata D’Addato and Anne Williams (Eurochild) calls upon governments to invest in universal, empowering and ‘enabling services’ for parents. To this end, special intervention programmes for parents should be embedded within a broader range of family support, according to the principle of progressive universalism. Organisations should engage in effective cooperation towards this goal, and ‘cross-agency training’ is a key factor for success in this regard. In their work, professionals should also strike a balance between working with ‘evidence-based’ programmes and their own experiences in practice.

In the concluding chapter, Ruben Fukkink and Caroline Vink (Netherlands) describe how the parents’ perspective can become obscured in policy, research and practice in the area of parenting support.

From their various professional perspectives and with the ‘local colour’ of their own countries, the various European authors in this publication thus describe how parenting support can be designed with special attention to the perspective of the parents, thereby placing them at the heart of services.

References

ChildONEurope Secretariat (2007). Survey on the role of parents and the support from the Governments in the EU. Strasbourg, France: Council of Europe Publications. Verkregen van: http://www.childoneurope.org/activities/pdf/reportSurveyRoleParents)

Crepaldi, C., Pasquinelli, S., Castegnaro, C., Naaf, S., Sarmento Pereira, M., Peeters, J. & Vandekerckhove, A. (2011). Parenting Support in Europe: A comparative study of policies and practices, Final Report. Dublin: European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions.

Daly, M. (2011). Building a Coordinated Strategy for Parenting Support. Peer Review in Social Protection and Social Inclusion. European Commission Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion.

Moran, P., Ghate, D., & Merwe, A. van der (2004). What Works in Parenting Support? A Review of the International Evidence. London: Department for Education and Skills. Retrieved from: http://www.prb.org.uk/wwiparenting/RR574.pdf

Parenting support in Europe: what it brings and what it can take away

Jo Hermanns

The growth of parenting support

Families are important in the policies of European countries. Following a study of a large number of countries, including 24 European countries, the OECD concludes:

‘Regardless of changes in shape and form, families remain the cornerstone of society and their role is largely unchanged’ (Adema, 2012)

Every European state has some kind of implicit or explicit family policy. Most family policies are traditionally directed at the promotion of citizens’ fertility, enlarging the workforce, increasing economic competitiveness, improving gender equality, reducing intergenerational poverty and dependency on benefits etcetera.

However, since the 1990s there has been a shift in orientation. Western states are becoming increasingly involved in parenting itself with the aim of optimising parenting. Nowadays authorities are interested in what parents actually do with their children. States are becoming aware of the economic and social importance of ensuring the best possible outcomes of the work of parenting.

On a European level, parenting support is formally a matter that is still left to the member states. Nevertheless the committee of ministers of the Council of Europe (Council of Europe, 2006) recommends to the member states that we:

... acknowledge the essential nature of families and of the parental role and create the necessary conditions for positive parenting in the best interests of the child…

Following a comparative study of policies and practices of parenting support in Europe, Crepaldi and colleagues (2011) conclude that in general, European countries depart from the assumption that:

Support, information, preventative action, and a network of parenting and relationship support can be crucial in helping families cope with everyday problems and with more specific difficulties of parents and children.

This shift can be understood in the context of several developments in modern societies, five of which are examined briefly in the following paragraphs.

First, there is a change in the objectives of welfare states. Traditionally, welfare states have seen it as their obligation to protect citizens against the vicissitudes of the market by providing unemployment benefits, for example, and by compensating for deficits in the personal lives of citizens through such things as health insurance policies and free, accessible youth care. Nowadays the balance appears to be shifting back to the personal responsibilities of citizens. This results in a policy of activation, empowerment, inclusion and investment in human and social capital. ‘Traditional’ tasks of the state are being increasingly transferred to ‘civic society’: individual citizens, their social networks and the market.

Because of the growing awareness that parenting is of crucial importance to the development of individual citizens as well to society at large, parenting support seems to be one of the frontline issues of this new policies. Supporting parents thus becomes a profitable way of preventing and curing many problems of society.

Secondly, the worldwide acceptance of the rights of children, articulated in the Convention on the Rights of the Child signed in 1989 and approved by all EU Member States gave another impulse to parenting support. The Convention underlines among other things the parents’ primary responsibility in their children’s upbringing and emphasises the State’s responsibility to provide appropriate assistance to parents. This assistance should support the healthy development of children and result in a more productive participation of these children in society. In addition the Convention stresses the duty of states to protect children from abuse and neglect. In many countries this duty is expressed in a policy of providing parental support as a preventive measure and targeted support for at-risk groups.

A third impetus comes from an increasing prevention ideology in science and policy. Scientific research repeatedly shows that problems of adult citizens, such as mental and physical health problems, delinquency, addiction and unemployment, that cause a high financial burden for societies, are strongly associated with experiences these citizens had in their families, especially early in life. The negative long-term consequences on several domains of life of growing up in poverty or in a context of inadequate parenting are well documented (e.g. Miller, Chen, & Parker, 2011). This has led to the belief that early recognition of developmental and parenting problems and suitable early intervention programmes can reduce the severity of these problems and help to prevent unnecessary individual suffering. It is also thought that this will reduce public spending. The spectacular long-term positive outcomes of such intervention programmes as the Family Nurse Partnership Programme and the Perry Preschool project are usually presented to justify the prevention argument.

A fourth factor has to do with the ‘moral panic’ caused by perceptions of the behaviour of young people. Criticism on the undisciplined and egocentric behaviour of youth is of all times, as illustrated in the following text.

“Our youth now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for their elders and love chatter in place of exercise; they no longer rise when elders enter the room; they contradict their parents, chatter before company; gobble up their food and tyrannise their teachers.” (Socrates, 500 AD).

But the criticism on youth and parents seems to be on the increase. Perhaps because children and adolescents are so often depicted as spoiled, potential criminals, as drunks and addicts. In today’s society, public distrust of the new generations and their parents seems, at least in a number of European countries, to be part of the national cultural heritage.

A fifth reason for the growth of parenting support has to do with the modernisation of parenthood itself. In European states, having children is less a matter of custom than earlier in history. Most middle-class European parents have children after a process of deliberation and preparation. A number of things have to be arranged before embarking upon parenthood. For example, schooling, income, housing and solutions for the combination of parenthood and work. The average age of first-time mothers has thus increased dramatically. In Western, Northern, and Southern Europe, first-time mothers are now on average 26 to 29 years old, up from 23 to 25 years at the beginning of the 1970s. If parents choose to have a child, it is in most cases a positive choice, meant to improve the quality of life in a meaningful way. With this choice, parents want to make the best of their parenting, and as they do in other important life domains such as personal health and relationships, they look for information and guidance from experts. They seek parenting guidance in magazines, on television, and on the internet. They also discuss parenting issues face-to-face with experts. The first group of valued experts is found in social networks: partners, their own parents, family members, but also friends and parents they meet in health services, child care and school (Edwards & Gillies, 2004). Though different countries will differ in this respect because of differences in the availability of services, parents also turn to experts in books and magazines and on the internet, to teachers, child care workers, but also to social workers, medical doctors, and educationalists. The motivation of parents to be ‘good parents’ is without doubt one of the powerful drives of the development of parenting support services. How many European parents actually seek expert information or guidance is unknown, but there must be many millions.

A response by professionals and scientists

All these developments have created a need for the development of a professional system of parenting support. Though in most European countries funding for this is still limited, scientists and a number of services and care institutions have developed a large number of parenting support interventions. Moran, Ghate, & Merwe (2004) describe the situation in England as follows:

…compared to the situation pre-1997 there can now be said ‘to be a reasonably well established ‘parenting support industry’ within the UK.

In a recent study of parenting support programmes in a Dutch city with a population of 300,000, an astonishing 210 interventions were counted, of which 89 were meant to support parents and/or children in an easy accessible and preventive way (Loos, Berg, & Hoogenbosch, 2012). In practice, parenting support includes a broad array of activities by social networks, volunteers or professionals, such as: providing information and education on development and upbringing, giving advice (on paper, in person, by telephone or internet) to parents, counselling of individual parents on questions regarding child development and child raising, organising parent discussion groups on parenting issues, organising self-help and social network support around children and parenting, home-visiting programmes, offering specific structured programmes for specific parenting tasks such as behaviour management or enrichment of the developmental context, and advising on the social and physical context of the development of children.

In a number of European countries, along with North America, Australia and New Zealand, also much scientific work is being carried out to develop and test parenting support programmes. Much is invested in answering the ‘what works’ questions. Numerous reviews and meta-analysis of parenting support in general or specific branches of parenting support have been published (Bremberg, 2006; Moran et al., 2004).

What is parenting support?

A substantial number of efforts have been made to define ‘parenting support’.

Almost every author that reviews parenting support stresses the importance of a clear definition and describing the boundaries of this type of activities in relation to other domains of policy and professional activities. However, producing a definition of parenting support that incorporates the whole field of activities, intentions and interventions is a challenge. Parenting support appears to be a truly complex concept. Given the variation in contexts, as described earlier, this does not come as a surprise. Different assumptions, goals, intentions and expectations of policymakers, professionals and parents influence the conceptualisation of parenting support. Stimulation of parenting support as a substitute for public services, the duty of states to assist parents and to protect children, the economy-driven policy of preventive parenting support, the moral panic around youngsters and the need for information, guidance and counselling of individual families, all lead to different conceptualisations of parenting support. In this sense, parenting support is a hybrid concept.

In a recent overview, Molinuevo (2012) lists a number of definitions by policymakers and scientists. From this list it becomes clear that parenting support is indeed not a neutral concept and that values, intentions and goals always play a role in the definitions that are presented. For example, Bremberg (2006) defines parenting support as

‘Organised interventions for parents aimed at promoting the welfare of the child’

Daly (2007), in an overview of parenting support in European countries, uses the following definition:

‘Parenting support refers to a range of information, support, education, training, counselling and other measures or services that focus on influencing how parents understand and carry out their parenting role. A common goal is to achieve better outcomes for children and young people (and in some instances families as a whole) by providing services that offer information, support and even retraining for parents.’

Words like ‘welfare’, ‘best interest’, ‘better outcomes’, ‘enabling’, ‘protective’ or ‘positive’ do indeed abound. However, different perspectives (states, professionals and parents), can lead to there being large differences in what is meant by ‘best interests’, ‘better outcomes’, and also in the actual realisation of ‘enabling’ and in the description of what the child has to be protected from. And it is not only the different perspectives of authorities, professionals and parents that may lead to different interpretations, but diverging notions may also be found within the three perspectives. Which ministry, which type of professional or which type of parents is involved will colour the conceptualisation of parenting support.

This complexity makes parenting support a hybrid concept, and given the accumulation of different goals, a concept that easily can be overloaded by non-reconcilable expectations. In concrete situations, this can lead to frictions, misinterpretations and miscommunication between parents and those who offer parenting support. If for example parents turn to a professional with personal questions, but the work of the professional is funded by authorities to protect children from neglect or abuse, a conflict of interests may arise. In the Netherlands for example, there are signs that some parents become upset after visiting a well baby clinic and having to complete a questionnaire on risk factors for child abuse and neglect. They often find both the questions and the follow-up intrusive and feel themselves accused of potential child abuse.

This is not to say that the different intentions described here are inappropriate. All of the described expectations of parenting support have some legitimacy. Often however, there is a lack of transparency and clarity of what exactly the different actors want to accomplish with parenting support.

Therefore, perhaps a more fruitful approach is to define parenting support as neutrally as possible and then proceed to clarify the different perspectives and describe the dilemma’s that can result from the different interests of parents, professionals and states. A ‘neutral definition’ could for example be:

Parenting support comprises those activities from professionals, volunteers or members of a parents social network, that are intended to influence the parent-child relationship or parent-child interactions.

In this rather vague definition it is not specified what goals are intended by what means or by whom and it leaves open if any outcomes of any types are achieved. Thus it is an empty framework that can be filled with a number of activities and intentions. In every single activity that is categorised as parenting support, a number of things have to be specified. What parenting support exactly is needs to be defined, constructed or ‘invented’ in every single parenting support activity.

What we, as experts can offer, is a set of dimensions, dilemmas and choices that are relevant for this separate activities. A number of descriptive dimensions already have been named:

■    Type of activity (from parent education to home visiting)

■    The target group (universal, selective, indicated or directed at manifest problems)

■    The person(s) offering support: members of the social network, volunteers or professionals)

■    Type of problem addressed (from general parenting principles to guidance of parenting with specific parenting or developmental problems)

A substantial number of reviews already describe the field, e.g Boddy et al. (2009), so although we gratefully refer to these sources, descriptive dimensions will not be repeated here.

However there are also a number of underlying conflicts of interests and dilemmas that professionals and policymakers should be aware of. There are no definite answers or solutions. The problem is that not being aware of the complexity behind parenting support policies, interventions or programmes can not only be a threat to the effectiveness of parenting support (for example when professionals goals do not match with parent goals), but can also raise ethical questions and evoke the risk of damaging lives and futures of parents and children.

The following five dilemmas have been selected for brief discussion.

■    Educating parents versus respecting intimate relationships

■    Child –directed interventions versus parental need-oriented interventions

■    Caring paternalism versus empowerment

■    Encouraging mainstreaming versus encouraging diversity

■    Evidence-based practice versus flexibility

Educating parents versus respecting intimate relationships

Parents in most countries have access to information on child development and parenting issues in magazines, books, television, radio and of course the internet. In addition they can be informed by professionals in health care, child care and schools. And of course, parent education programmes are often available. Knowledge on child development, on the consequences of specific behaviours of parents such as language stimulation or corporal punishment is invaluable for parents. Parents can make better informed choices, profit from the experience of professionals and from the advancement of science. A number of critical authors stress however that this kind of parenting support has the risk of turning parenthood from an intimate, unique personal relationship into an occupation, requiring particular knowledge and skills. It is exactly this intimate relationship that is the most important characteristic of family relations. Compromising this relationship threatens the very meaning of parenthood. Though most professionals in the field see respect for the parents’ values and competencies as a core value in their work, this value can be eroded by presenting parenting as a set of techniques that are known to experts but not to parents. Furedi (2001) cited in Gillies (2005) speaks of ‘creeping professionalism’. An interesting finding from a study in England by Johnson et al. (2005) was that 29% parents in poor environments felt that professionals interfered, or tried to take over, when they were asked for advice on parenting issues. It seems that ‘evidence-based parenting’ is becoming a popular concept in the field of parenting support (Kooijman, 2009).

Of course this criticism is no grounds for completely withholding information or advice from parents who want to inform themselves, nor is it grounds for abolishing parent education programmes.

Modesty on behalf of professionals and respect for parents seem to be the key concepts in dealing with this dilemma. A balance between the individual needs and ideals of parents and the needs and ideals of professionals to use scientific knowledge to improve the development of parents and ultimately children has to be found in every intervention that is designed. In addition it must be admitted that almost all popular professional advice given to parents later proved to be not (or not quite) as sensible as they thought at that moment. For example advice about baby crying, feeding schedules, language development, bilingual development, corporal punishment, parenting style and behaviour management have varied considerably in the past decennia and still do vary between professionals.

Child – directed interventions versus parental need-oriented interventions

Notwithstanding the growing knowledge in behavioural genetics and bio-psychology, the importance of the role of parents in the development of each individual child is undisputed. Better developmental outcomes for children can be realised by parenting support (see Moran et al., 2004, for an overview). Particularly for families that have to deal with a number of risk factors, parenting support can make a difference. Indeed, the promise of early intervention by scientists and professionals is tempting: more wellbeing of parents and children, better school results, less child abuse and neglect, fewer behavioural and psychological problems, less criminality and, on the level of the society, more economic competitiveness and fewer costs. This promise has resulted in a large number of parenting programmes for groups of families or individual families in which children statistically are at risk for a number of unfavourable developmental outcomes. States spend increasing amount of money to implement them. Triple P, Nurse Family Partnership, Incredible Years, and Perry Preschool Project are examples of internationally implemented programmes. Often a cognitive behavioural approach is used, directed at behaviour management by parents. These programmes all are evidence based and show long term positive outcomes for children. One problem is however that most programmes do not depart from the questions, problems and needs that are formulated or felt by parents themselves. One could say that parents often are used as gateways that give access to the behaviour and development of the child but are not supported by their own right. Most policy papers stress however as well the importance for structured, child directed parenting support as well the importance to depart from the questions and needs of parents. This can evoke dilemmas.

In a number of Dutch studies in families that received professional help (e.g. Hermanns, Mordang, & Mulder, 2002) it was found that of the priorities of families arguably most at risk, many of these were not primarily in the domain of child rearing. If families are asked to name what they would like to change in their families, at least 50% of the goals they name are associated with financial problems, household management, housing problems, social isolation or divorce. The question is whether these families, will be motivated to start with a parenting programme, and if they start, will complete it and will profit from it. In an English study of the implementation of a parenting support programme (Incredible Years BASIC) it was found that in the end only about 20% of the targeted families participated (Axford, Lehtonen, Kaoukji, Tobin, & Berry, 2012).

Reacting to risks that children experience as well as responding to needs of parents is not per se contradictory. Integrating both approaches in one programme or combining programmes in a ‘one family, one plan’ approach is sometimes possible. There are alternative routes to reach parents, in which the actual problems of parents themselves are the point of departure. For example a programme like Home-Start, in which volunteers with a strictly demand-oriented attitude visit families, can have similar positive effects on parenting and child outcomes to more structured and focused programmes (Asscher, Dekovic, Prinzie, & Hermanns, 2008; Asscher, Hermanns, & Dekovic, 2008).

Caring paternalism versus empowerment

One of the frequently reported problems in parenting support is the fact that the families that most need support are the hardest to reach. This problem is mentioned in several European policy documents on parenting support. Outreaching work, sometimes called a ‘go structure’ as opposed to a ‘come structure’ is applied.

In practice, several ways are used to seduce or coax parents into participating, or even to force them to participate (for example by withholding benefits or installing child protection measures). A number of authors speak of ‘paternalism’: to act and make decisions on behalf of others for their own good (Tonkens & Duyvendak, 2003). Because European states have an obligation to respect a number of internationally agreed interests (children’s rights), there can be no fundamental rejection of some form of paternalism.

Thus the question is to what extent and with what legitimation interventions should take place. Tonkens and Duyvendak differentiate between a ‘caring paternalism’, based on authentic compassion with parents and children, with the true needs of these families as its starting point, and liberal neopaternalism whose most important goal is to protect other citizens from dysfunctional families. Its character is punitive and repressive. Without doubt, the majority of the professionals that are involved in parenting support are in favour of a caring paternalism. But even then, a dilemma can exist between this caring attitude and another value that according to most authors is central to parenting support: the goal to enable parents, to empower parents and to strengthen already existent competencies. The Council of Europe (Council of Europe, 2006), for example, in a report to the ministers, recommends

…the adoption of an empowerment approach – based on consultation and dialogue with parents and on their voluntary involvement and participation in the spirit of a working partnership’.

A caring attitude can make families dependent on professional expertise and help. Professionals can increasingly feel responsible for solving problems in families and search for more and more solutions in the professional domain. This can result in an extensive use of a variety of professional interventions in the family. The risk is that this process will end up with professionals taking over a number of parental tasks. Gilbert (2012) concludes after a study of 10 European countries the following:

Under the child-focused orientation, the state advances paternalistic policies, often referred to as ‘defamilialisation’ that reduce the individual’s dependence on kinship’

One would expect that the more states successfully invest in the wellbeing of children and families, the less substitutive care by the state, such as out-of home placements, would take place. Interestingly, Gilbert found indications that the reverse is true. Countries with higher scores on material and educational well-being of children, better health and safety of children, better family relationships and less risky behaviours, had more out-of-home placements (finding a correlation of .57 between wellbeing and the number of out-of -home placements). One of the many possible explanations is that a caring society runs the risk of being an overanxious or overly concerned society that is too intrusive in intimate relationships.

In each case, finding a balance between professionally taking responsibility when needed on the one hand and enabling parents to take their own responsibilities on the other, is a delicate process in parenting support. Making a principal choice for either of the two extremes will sometimes be detrimental to the families involved and to society.

To conclude this section on paternalism, it is important to once again discuss the virtue of ‘modesty’ for scientists and professionals. What professionals and scientists consider to be in the best interests of families turns out to not always be the best after all, or not the best in a certain context. For example, most professionals (based on descriptive scientific studies) propagate an authoritarian style of parenting, with clear limit setting, but with room for individual freedom within these limits and interacting in a warm, communicative style that allows for negotiation and reasoning. However, a classic study by Baldwin, Baldwin, & Cole (1990) in families in poorer areas of New York showed that this middle-class style of parenting is not suitable in the context of multi-risk areas. A more authoritative parenting style, with very strict rules, little room for negotiation and close supervision resulted in less behavioural problems and improved school functioning. Context matters!

Encouraging mainstreaming versus encouraging diversity

In most conceptualisations of parenting support, resolving inequality and pursuing inclusion for all children plays a role. This is an important issue in democratic states in which no citizens should be excluded from provisions, participation and protection. Often the focus is specifically on reducing poverty and on the effects of poverty on, for example, school success.

In a Council of Europe publication, Daly (2007) describes parenting as an intimate process between family members, but at the same time remarks:

‘While it is in many respects private, it is also shaped by society’s understanding and expectations of appropriate parental behaviour and how the state and the public authorities frame and construct public policy’

Also professionals, involved in parenting support guided by their own professional ethics, usually place high value on children growing up in families and attending regular day care and school, and they try to avoid placements in specialised institutions, feeling that children should grow up as ‘ordinarily’ as possible and participate fully in the community.

A number of authors and experts point to the friction that can be caused as these ‘mainstream’ norms are compared to the principle of respect for diversity between families. Personal choices of parents, life style, cultural and religious background, national differences in political and moral values can vary considerably.

Eurochild places the principle of recognition and respect for the diversity of families in several dimensions in parenting support policy and practice

‘in relation to family patterns, family composition and size, cultural differences and gender differences, in keeping with the best interest of the child.” (Eurochild 2010, cited in Molinuevo, 2012).

Several authors point to the tension than can arise when the participation/inclusion ideal is confronted with the diversity ideal. Gillies argues that in the English policy to support parents

‘despite a rhetoric of empowerment and investment, the current emphasis on support represents a top-down projection of values and standards onto families, thereby ‘supporting’ conformity rather than promoting access to parenting resources’ (Gillies, 2005).

Molinuovo (2012) cites a Belgian expert who argues that parenting support

... shows a ‘double face’: on the one hand it does offer parents practical and helpful support, it can work preventatively but it also implies a notion of guilt and a denial of parental capabilities (deficit view), and it can serve as some kind of social control to get parents to follow the ‘desired’ parenting model. It still contains a level of judgment on ‘what a good family should be’, disregarding the diversity among families and childrearing habits and cultures.’

One of the reasons why parents with an immigrant background often are underrepresented in parent-support programmes is without a doubt because these parents do not trust the professionals (and behind them the authorities) to respect their norms and values. Gender diversity is also an issue. Most parenting support programmes are implicitly developed for mothers. The viewpoints and needs of fathers run the risk of being neglected.

Respect for diversity also means respect for lifestyle and living circumstances. Parent education groups for example are often based on a classical educational programme, with scheduled meetings, homework and paper work in classes. Yet many parents who live in poverty can experience difficulties with child care, transport or fixed meetings, because of the sometimes unpredictable course of their days, the continuous time pressure they are confronted with and a shortage of money. Others may have less experience with ‘school-like’ services, involving homework and filling in questionnaires.

Here too, simple solutions are not available. Clear expectations and openness are needed in what a programme has to offer, what the intentions are and which choices for parents are possible and which not. For many professionals, this can be a difficult task. A qualitative study by the Joseph Rountree Foundation in England among practitioners providing parenting support in different areas of expertise, found that:

‘There is a need to promote and support better ongoing training, especially in diversity and parenting issues. Practitioners felt it was important to identify and reflect on diversity issues, but often had no formal way (such as supervision, frameworks or tools) to help them to make sense of the impact of diversity on parenting and the family and incorporate this into assessments’ (Kellett & Apps, 2009).

Evidence-based practice versus flexibility

There is a strong movement in the field of parenting support to offer only those programmes that are evidence based. That is to say, only interventions with strong theoretical underpinning that have proven to be effective (preferably in a randomised controlled trial) and have a positive cost/benefit ratio should be offered to parents. This development of evidence-based practice (EBP) has without doubt enriched and improved the quality of parenting support programmes. It seems irresponsible to offer parents programmes with an unknown result and to spend money on programmes that do not contribute to the quality of life of citizens. The development of EBP has stimulated the development of standardised programmes that can be implemented on a large scale. The upholding of programme integrity is considered to be of great importance. The programme should be carried out as it was intended to, in order to achieve the same results as the original programme. This further stimulates standardisation and the use of protocols in parenting support programmes. In addition however, flexibility, individualised and need-oriented parenting support are also almost unanimously propagated by policymakers and professionals. Almost all reviewing authors list demand-led solutions and flexibility as characteristics that contribute to effectiveness. The increasing emphasis on evidence-based practice can compromise the need for more flexible, individualised forms that parenting support can take.

In some other European countries, support for parents and families is embedded in universal service provision, rather than a discrete, time-limited ‘intervention’, and hence evaluation is more likely to involve assessment of individual progress (is this working for this family?) rather than assessment of the overall efficiency of a standardised programme. (Boddy, Smith, & Statham, 2011)

This dilemma, more than the other dilemmas discussed here, can partly be resolved along methodological lines. In other domains of helping families, interventions have been developed that are programmatic as well as individualised and flexible. For example, Multisystemic Therapy is a need-oriented, flexible and highly individualised programme for children and adolescents with severe problems. At the same time it is considered to be one of the most evidence-based programmes in the field of child welfare (Sawyer & Borduin, 2011). The same goes for the Wraparound Care Model (Hermanns, 2011b).

To a large degree however, it is up to professionals in every contact with parents to find a balance between programmatic parenting support and open, embedded and personal parenting support, in which the competencies of those who offer support are often more important than which programme they apply.

Policy and practice in parenting support: an everlasting dialogue

Nowadays, discussions on parenting support in policy, science and practice are often narrowed down to questions like ‘what works’, ‘how can we organise it’ and what are the costs-benefits for society. However, the seemingly straightforward and low-threshold services ‘to help parents to be good parents’ touches on the very complex, intimate and intense process of parenting and thus becomes as complex as the process it tries to support. Forgetting about more fundamental issues and dilemmas is a threat to the further development of quality and the effectiveness of the work. In every activity in the domain of parenting support dilemmas can rise and choices must been made. Only in very rare and extreme cases are these choices the sole prerogative of professionals and policy makers, for example if the safety of the child is immediately at risk. In the majority of professional-parent relationships, however, valid and enduring choices only can be made in an open dialogue. All parties, the parent on one side and the professional and policymakers on the other side, may have their legitimate goals and have access to different answers and solutions. Many authors postulate that professionals should collaborate with parents in a non-judgmental way. Parents, authorities and professionals can all make contributions that can be worthwhile and important for the wellbeing and future of parents and children. To make this dialogue work, transparency is paramount.

In most of the dilemmas discussed, the social and physical context of the family is crucial. No fruitful dialogue with parents is possible if their social and physical context is not part of the dialogue. Two final citations throw light upon this issue. The first is from Edward Zigler, one of the founders of the family support movement in the United States of America:

‘The problems of many families will ...only be solved by changes in the basic features of the infrastructure of society. No amount of counselling, early childhood curricula, or home visits will take the place of jobs that provide decent incomes, affordable housing, appropriate health care, optimal family configurations or integrated neighbourhoods where children encounter positive role models’. (Zigler, 1992).

Patricia Moran and colleagues translate this observation in the following advice to professionals and policy makers:

The challenge …is not only to establish what works at the level of individual parenting programmes and interventions, but to provide an overarching policy context which is consistent with parenting support across the entire ‘ecology’ of parenting. That is, a policy approach that addresses in a consistent way the multiple risks that adversely influence parenting, and at the same time enhances the opportunities that promote resilience (Moran et al., 2004).

Conclusions

Parenting support is a growing domain of policy and professional efforts in Europe. In some countries professional parenting support has already become a self-evident part of parenthood. In other countries it is still in its first stages of development. For many parents it has already brought a higher quality of family life. It has brought better prospects for many children. And it is safe to say that parenting support has been profitable for society in general: not only financially in preventing later costs, but more importantly, by also contributing to the quality of life in communities.

However, parenting support is a delicate and complex project. The danger of straightforward, hasty and thus counterproductive interventions is always present. Involvement in one of the most intimate human relationships, the parent-child relationship, demands modesty, prudence and a continuous dialogue between all involved, parents in the first place. ‘Think parents’ is advice that should be valued by all those involved in providing parenting support.

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Short biographies of contributors to Think Parents!

Jo Hermanns

Jo Hermanns, 1948, dr. psychology, worked for more than 25 years in mental health and youth welfare organisations. Until June 2013 he was professor of Pedagogical Sciences at the University of Amsterdam, part time professor at the Professional University of Utrecht. He now is an independent consultant on the field of child and youth policy as a member of H&S Consult.

In his work, he focuses on contextual models of child development and on risk factors and protective factors in families with young children. He is involved in the design and evaluation of a number of support programs for parents and children, such as Family Centres, Home-Start and Wraparound care programs. On a national level he chaired the development and implementation of The Advice and Reporting Centres for Child Abuse and Neglect and designed and implemented an evidencebased national plan for the prevention of child abuse and neglect.

He was and is member of a number of national advisory panels, such as the Certification Panel for Interventions in Judicial Work for the ministry of Security and Justice and Advisory group for the Chief Inspector of Education, on behalf of the minister of Education, Science and Culture.

Katie-Lee Weille

Katie-Lee Weille, PhD, ACSW, received her Masters from Smith College School for Social Work in 1989, and worked for 10 years with children and families in a range of clinical settings in the United States and at Tavistock Clinic in London. She received her PhD in Psychology from the University of London in 2004, during and after which she while taught and supervised clinical and research students at the London Institute for Family Therapy and other university courses in England and the Netherlands. From 2009-2012 Dr. Weille was Professor of Parenthood and Professional Work with Parents at Leiden University of Applied Science, where she published the book, making sense of parenthood: On ambivalence and resourcefulness. Dr. Weille is currently Adjunct Professor at Webster University and continues to teach and supervise on a number of postgraduate courses in the Netherlands. She serves on the editorial board of the Dutch Journal of parenthood and professional work with parents, and has an independent practice in Amsterdam for individual and couples therapy, advice, training and supervision.

Michel Vandenbroeck

Michel Vandenbroeck is professor at the Department of Social Welfare Studies, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Ghent University in Belgium. He teaches Early Childhood Care and Education and Family Pedagogy. His research focuses on early childhood policy and practice and parent support, with a special interest for diversity and social inclusion. He authored several international publications on these issues.

Before his employment at the Department, he worked as project coordinator at VBJK Centre for Innovation in the Early Years, where he set up projects on diversity in early childhood care and education and on professional development. At present, he is president of the Board of VBJK. He was a co-founder of the European network DECET (Diversity in Early Childhood Education and Training) and is also a member of the Board of Trustees of the European Early Childhood Education Research Association. Het sits on several advisory boards, including the advisory board of Kind en Gezin, the governmental agency for child care and preventive parent support in the Flemish Community of Belgium.

Johanna Anquist

Johanna Anquist is trained in Social Science and Public Health. She has completed her BSc (Sociology) at Stockholm University and her MPH at the Karolinska Institute. Finally, Johanna completed her PhD (Social epidemiology) at the department of Public Health, Karolinska Institute. Johanna has worked at Public Health Agency of Sweden (former Swedish National Institute of Public Health) since 2004, mainly with questions regarding the health of children and youth. Johanna is currently acting head of the Unit for Mental Health, Children and Youth, the Department of Knowledge Development.

Marion Macleod

Marion Macleod is the Senior Policy and Parliamentary Officer at Children in Scotland, the national network organisation for the children’s sector in Scotland. After graduating with an MA in Modern History from Glasgow University, she did a variety of voluntary and paid jobs before training as a social worker at Edinburgh University. Initially employed as a practitioner in a deprived community in Edinburgh, she moved on to specialise in planning and development of children’s services. Latterly she led on integrating children’s services in Edinburgh and managed major programmes of structural change, partnership working and early intervention. Over the years, she has participated in many national committees and working groups covering a diverse range of issues in children’s services. She has been integrally involved in the development and implementation of the Scottish Government’s National Parenting Strategy, and is currently engaged in developing support for equal parenting for fathers and empowering parents of disabled children. She is the co-chair of Eurochild’s Family and Parenting Support Thematic Working Group.

María José Rodrigo

Maria José Rodrigo holds Ph.D. in Psychology for the University of Salamanca and is director of the Master Programme on Family Intervention and Mediation at the University of La Laguna, Spain. She is president of the European Association of Developmental Psychology (2008-2011). She is also a fellow since 2010 of the Association for Psychological Science (APS) for sustained and outstanding distinguished contributions to psychological science. Organizer of several postgraduate courses on Evidence-based Parent Education Programs and Best Practices to Promote Positive Parenting sponsored by the Council of Europe and the Jacobs Foundation. She is an expert commissioned by the Spanish Ministry of Health, Social Policy and Equality to promote good practices among professionals in the use of evidence-based and preventive approaches for family work. Her research topic is Evidence-based parenting programmes to promote positive parenting in the families under at risk circumstances and prevent child maltreatment on which she has published many international papers. Prof. Rodrigo and her team have designed, implemented and evaluated group parenting programs targeted at families referred by the local social services, which are widely spread in Spain and currently starting in Portugal and Brasil. Prof. Rodrigo and her team have also developed a web resource for Spanish-speaking parents “Educar en Positivo” that contains an on-line evidence-based parenting programme.

Sonia Byrne

Sonia Byrne holds a Ph.D. in Psychology for the University of La Laguna, where she is part of the Developmental Psychology Team. Her main interests are evidence-based interventions, positive parenting and child maltreatment, as well as neuronal bases of child maltreatment. Accordingly, she has participated in the design, implementation and evaluation of different parenting programs targeted at psychosocial risk families referred by the local social services.

Miriam Álvarez

Miriam Alvarez is a PhD Student at the Department of Developmental Psychology and Education, University of La Laguna, Spain. She holds a diploma in Early Childhood Education, degree in Psycho-pedagogy and Master Degree on Family Intervention and Mediation at the University of La Laguna. From 2008 she had a predoctoral fellowship for The Training of University Teachers from the Ministry of Education and Science of the Spanish Government. She has been teacher at the University of La Laguna and at the National Distance Learning University of subjects related to educational psychology. She is member of I + D research projects focusing on family issues and member of official research group directed by Prof. Rodrigo, trained in designed, implemented, evaluated and dissemination of parenting education programs. Her principal research interests are Evidence-based parenting programmes to promote positive parenting, the prevention of child maltreatment, family conflicts and the use of the new technology in the family. She has participated in many international congresses with these topics and has published international papers.

Elena Luciano

Elena Luciano has a research PhD in Education and is a research fellow in General and Social Pedagogy; she lectures in Childhood Pedagogy and Adult Education at the University of Parma – Italy. She carries out empirical research and training work in schools, early childhood education and care services and hospitals.

Her main study and research areas include educational relationship and child protagonism in learning, the relationship between adults in early childhood education and care services (educational corresponsibility between school-educational services and the family, the educational/working group), participation (of adults, children and community) in early childhood settings in Italy and Europe, and the educational value of illness and infant hospitalisation.

Monica Guerra

Monica Guerra holds a PhD in Education and is research fellow in Educational Research and Didactics at the University of Milano Bicocca – Italy, where she lectures in Mediation and Group Strategies in Teaching and Theories and Practices of Educational Communication. She carries out empirical research and training in early childhood education services and schools.

Her main study and research interests include mediation in teaching; documenting learning processes; the design of learning contexts; the role of materials, both conventional and unconventional, in cognitive and creative processes; group work, amongst children and amongst adults; school-family relations; theatre in education

Milla Kalliomaa

Milla Kalliomaa has worked as a director at the Mannerheim League for Child Welfare since 2003, with her areas of responsibility including the development of Family Centre activities, voluntary work and civic activities. She has worked in various managerial duties concerning preventive services for families and civic activities since 1997. She currently runs a project that aims to develop collaboration models with municipalities and the way Family Centre activities are professionally directed. The Mannerheim League for Child Welfare is the largest organisation in this field in Finland and it has more than 90,000 members and 558 regional associations. The League started the first Family Centre in Finland in 1989 and today it has 545 Family Cafés all over the country.

Benedikte Ask Skotte

Benedikte Ask Skotte is a mother of 5 children, in the age of 16-23 years. She was educated as a practical farmer and has worked on her own farm for 13 years. She holds a Master in Agriculture and is a teacher for vocational education. Now she works for an organisation that identifies pupils’ learning issues and is an independent consultant in education. She has been sitting at the school board of her children’s school for 16 years. She was the president for 4 years after being vice-president for 3 years in the Danish national parents association, Skole og Forældre. She resigned in November 2012 because her children finished public school. During the 4 years as president she was also president of the Nordic parents associations, for 2 years and 4 years in the board of European parents association, 3 years as vice president.

Milena Mihajlović

Milena Mihajlović, MA in Psychology. Milena worked as a psychologist in Preschool Institution in Belgrade for 10 years and has more than 18 years of working experience in NGO sector as a trainer and coordinator. Since 2002, she has been the Executive Director of CIP – Centre for Interactive Pedagogy.

Milena has broad professional experience in the fields of early childhood education, research, development of strategic documents, inclusive education, empowerment of parents, networking, advocacy, and management.

In addition, she is a member of several professional bodies established by the International Step by Step Association – ISSA (Board, Strategic Planning Committee, NGO Development Task Force), Ministry of Education (Consultation team for Education Strategy development, Expert team for development of Strategy and Action Plan for Improvement of Education of Roma), Steering Commity of the Network of NGOs for Children in Serbia, Education Board within the League for Roma Decade.

Milena is the author of 3 picture books “World in Me and around Me”, several research reports on inclusive education, manual for teachers on ECDE, non-violent communication, inclusive education and program for the empowerment of parents. Also, she developed numerous training modules and conducted the training sessions for teachers and other professionals, pedagogical assistants and NGO activists. Furthermore, she participated, facilitated and presented at a number of conferences in Serbia and abroad.

Boris Spasić

Boris Spasić has graduated from the Faculty of Philology, University of Belgrade and acquired an MA Certificate at the Department of Modern Greek Language and Literature. Boris has worked at the CIP – Centre for Interactive Pedagogy as the Project Coordinator since 2011. In his current position, besides “Parents Have a Say, Too” Initiative, he coordinates “Reclaiming Adolescence Project: Roma Transition to Adulthood in Serbia”, which is implemented in cooperation with François- Xavier Bagnoud Centre for Health and Human Rights, Harvard University, Save the Children and Foundation for an Open Society, Serbia. In addition to this, Boris contributed to development of program aiming at strengthening the competencies of parents, children and youth for active participation in educational and societal processes and self advocacy. As a trainer, he successfully facilitated the courses for pedagogical assistants on cooperation with families, local self governments, CSO, and expert institutions.

He previously worked at the residential institution for children with disabilities where, among other responsibilities he encouraged communication between children and local residents. Furthermore, Boris is particularly interested in the field of social and educational inclusion of Roma people and other vulnerable groups.

Agata D’Addato

Agata D’Addato is senior policy coordinator at Eurochild and is the coordination of Eurochild’s work on mutual learning and practice exchange and policy assessment in the fields of child poverty and well-being, family and parenting support.

Anne Williams

Anne Williams is an Independent Child and Family Consultant. She is a British national living in France. She holds a professional social work qualification and a Masters Degree in Social Science from the University of Birmingham in the UK.

Ms Williams has worked in the statutory and non-governmental sectors of the social care field for over 30 years, many of which were dedicated to the strategic development of family support services in the UK. Since 2003, she has worked as an Independent Consultant on a European level. During this time she has provided external consultancy to Eurochild on a diverse programme of activities. She was instrumental in establishing Eurochild’s Thematic Working Group on Family and Parenting Support in 2007 and has remained an active member of the Working Group since. She has contributed to many reports and policy papers in this context and coordinated several pan-European projects. She is Coordinator of Eurochild’s Compendium “on Early Intervention and Prevention in Family and Parenting Support” (2012).

Ruben Fukkink

Ruben Fukkink is professor of Childcare and Education Services for Young Children in the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences at the University of Amsterdam. He is also professor (lector) at the Kenniscentrum Onderwijs en Opvoeding of the Applied University of Amsterdam and is currently chair of the Institute for the Study of Education and Human Development. He has published on various educational and pedagogical topics, including childcare, online parental support and video feedback programs for parents. He was member of the organizing committee of the Think Parents!-conference in 2012, organised by the Netherlands Youth Institute and the University of Amsterdam and in partnership with Eurochild and the Council of Europe and many others.

Caroline Vink

Caroline Vink is senior advisor at the Netherlands Youth Institute. She works at the programme transition and transformation, on the decentralisation of all child and youth policy to the local governments. She advices (local) governments and service providers for children, young people and families.

She is also an expert on international children & youth policy and has worked on many international reviews and comparisons and has organised expert meetings and study visits. Part of her work is to monitor trends and (international) developments that are relevant for the policy and practice of children & youth policy. Until the end of 2013 she was the chair of Thematic Working Group on Family and Parenting Support of Eurochild. In 2012 she was responsible for organising the Think Parents! Conference in the Hague, The Netherlands, together with the university of Amsterdam and in partnership with the Council of Europe and Eurochild and many other partners. This conference brought together more than 170 participants from over 25 countries, representing policy, practice and research.

Nynke Bosscher

Nynke Bosscher MSc (1985) is social pedagogue and works for the Netherlands Youth Institute, the Dutch national institute for compiling, verifying and disseminating knowledge on children and youth matters. She is involved in national and international knowledge exchange regarding current issues in the Dutch child welfare sector, like empowerment, strengthening frontline services, parenting support, the role and tasks of social workers and the training of professionals. Nynke conducts research, organises events, contributes to conferences and writes (web) texts. In the past she gave parenting support at a community school and coordinated a Home-Start project in which volunteers support families.

Colophon

Think Parents!

Putting parents at the heart of parenting support

Ruben Fukkink, Caroline Vink & Nynke Bosscher (Editors)

ISBN 978908504969
e-ISBN 9789088505393

NUR 847

English-language editing

UvA Talen, Amsterdam

Design cover

Marc Horvat, SWP Publishers

Layout and typesetting

Redactiebureau Ron Heijer, Markelo

Publisher

Paul Roosenstein

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