As social workers and workshop facilitators, your mission is to provide support and resources for individuals and families facing various challenges. One critical area of focus is secondary prevention or intervention programs designed for at-risk youth, teen parents, and families experiencing mild to moderate levels of dysfunction. These programs play a vital role in stopping the cycle of dysfunction and guiding individuals and families toward building positive, nurturing beliefs, knowledge, and skills. In this blog post, we will explore a range of effective secondary prevention programs and the valuable resources they offer.
1. Nurturing Skills for Families
“Nurturing Skills for Families” is a comprehensive parenting program that offers 80 Nurturing Parenting Skill Lessons to cater to the unique needs of families. The program utilizes competency-based instruction to teach parents the fundamental skills of Nurturing Parenting, a well-established evidence-based program. Each instructional lesson runs for 60 to 90 minutes and can be conducted in group-based settings, home-based programs, or a combination of both.
The program incorporates two built-in assessment tools—the Adult-Adolescent Parenting Inventory (AAPI-2) and the Nurturing Skills Competency Scale (NSCS)—to evaluate parenting beliefs, knowledge, and skills. Participants can measure the program’s impact through pre, post, and process assessments. Additionally, the Family Nurturing Plan (FNP) fosters collaboration between parents and professionals in designing a parenting program tailored to the family’s specific needs. Parents are required to demonstrate competence in Core Lessons, forming the foundation of Nurturing Parenting, while enhancing their commitment to learning Nurturing Parenting beliefs, knowledge, and skills.
For the benefit of children, separate group sessions are conducted concurrently with parents. The Lesson Guide for Children offers complementary lessons aligned with the parents’ teachings. Depending on the child’s age, home-based classes engage parents and children in attachment activities.
This versatile program finds its application in various settings, making it ideal for Continuing Education Trainings, Parent Education Programs and Workshops, Short-term Intensive Home Visitation Programs, High School & College Child Development Classes, and Long-term home-based programs like Healthy Families, Healthy Start, Head Start, & Even Start.
Resources:
- Manuals: Comprehensive guides for educators and facilitators outlining the program’s content and objectives.
- Resource Materials: Additional materials to enhance the learning experience and provide valuable insights.
- DVDs and CDs: Audiovisual aids to aid in the delivery of program content effectively.
- Games: Engaging activities to make the learning process enjoyable for both parents and children.
- Assessments and Evaluations: Tools to measure the program’s effectiveness and participants’ progress.
- Instructional Aids: Visual aids and materials to aid in the facilitation of sessions.
- Optional Online Resources: Supplementary resources available online for further learning and support.
- Optional Professional Manuals: In-depth resources for educators and facilitators seeking to enhance their skills.
- Optional Supplemental Materials: Additional resources to customize the program to specific needs.
2. Nurturing Skills for Teen Parents
“Nurturing Skills for Teen Parents” is a comprehensive Lesson Guide consisting of 59 sessions extracted from the internationally recognized and validated NURTURING PARENTING PROGRAMS®. Tailored specifically for teen parents, the program aims to improve their parenting skills for children in two age groups: birth to 5 years and 5 to 12 years. Each session lasts between 50 to 90 minutes and covers 16 different Skill Areas, encompassing a wide range of appropriate parenting practices.
The individual Lessons are thoughtfully structured with easy-to-follow, step-by-step instructions, suitable for the age level of the children being raised. These Skill Areas and Lessons can be delivered in any preferred sequence, offering flexibility based on the unique needs of each family.
To foster positive teen parent-child attachment, the program encourages the active involvement of children, and instructional booklets are provided to assist teens in promoting healthy child development. Adolescents attending the teen Nurturing Parenting classes receive a parent handbook and participate in role plays, discussions, and creative expression through art.
The program’s versatility makes it an ideal choice for various applications, including Continuing Education Trainings, Parent Education Programs and Workshops, Short-term Intensive Home Visitation Programs, High School & College Child Development Classes, and Long-term home-based programs like Healthy Families, Healthy Start, Head Start, & Even Start.
Resources:
- Manuals: Comprehensive guides for educators and facilitators outlining the curriculum and lesson plans.
- DVDs and CDs: Audiovisual aids to enhance the learning experience for teen parents.
- Assessments and Evaluations: Tools to evaluate the impact of the program on teenage parents.
- Optional Online Resources: Supplementary resources available online for further support.
- Optional Professional Manuals: Additional materials for facilitators seeking to deepen their understanding of the curriculum.
- Optional Supplemental Materials: Extra resources to tailor the program to specific needs.
3. It’s All About Being a Teen
“It’s All About Being a Teen” is a comprehensive program offering 99 Lessons aimed at promoting Nurturing Values and Skills in teenagers. Throughout the semester, teens receive handouts and collaboratively build their class text, which includes current topic information, exercises, fill-in-the-blank questionnaires, and self-report inventories. The program engages students in various interactive activities such as role-play, psychodrama, discussions, debates, and creative expression.
Home practice assignments are carefully designed to strengthen and reinforce program competencies. Each lesson clearly outlines the competencies that teens are expected to acquire, ensuring both the teens and the instructor or counselor remain focused and accountable. To assess learning progress, short essay questions are given at the end of each class.
The Instructor’s Manual offers additional support, including lesson handouts on CD, and teens are provided with their own Handbook as they actively participate in creating it. The program is flexible, allowing for group/class settings or one-to-one sessions in an office or home environment.
Designed to be an invaluable resource, this program benefits middle-school and high-school teachers, professionals working with high-risk youth in residential and detention centers, as well as therapists and counselors working one-on-one with teens.
The Lessons cover a wide range of topics to help teens:
- Understand Nurturing as a way of life
- Increase their understanding of love & dating
- Learn how their teen brain functions
- Practice safety on the Internet and texting
- Develop self-awareness
- Build positive parent-teen relationships
- Enhance their self-worth
- Manage their feelings
- Learn about family dynamics and what it means to be a family
- Handle peer pressure and bullies
- Explore their family history
- Build positive communication skills
- Gain an understanding of sex & sexuality
- Increase their knowledge of drug and alcohol addiction
- Enhance their understanding of various mental health issues of adolescence, including anorexia, bulimia, binge eating, body image issues, depression, cutting, suicide, and others.
Resources:
- Manuals: Comprehensive guides for educators and facilitators outlining the curriculum and lesson plans.
- Games: Engaging activities to make the learning process enjoyable and impactful for teenagers.
- Optional Professional Manuals: Additional resources for facilitators to deepen their knowledge and skills.
4. Nurturing America’s Military Families
“Nurturing America’s Military Families” is a specialized Parenting Program designed to enhance the nurturing parenting skills of military parents with children aged from birth to 5 years old. The program follows the NPSP model of the Military Families Nurturing Program, which is culturally adapted to address the unique challenges of parenting when one or both parents are on active duty. It is considered a competency-based program, focusing on developing essential parenting skills.
The program offers appropriate activities tailored to the age of the child, often conducted in a pre-school type setting. Home visits play a vital role in engaging parents, allowing them to learn Nurturing Parenting skills and foster positive parent-child attachments.
Structured around five parenting constructs, which represent the subscales of the Adult-Adolescent Parenting Inventory (AAPI-2), the program covers:
- Empathy
- Developmental Expectations
- Alternatives to Corporal Punishment
- Reversing Family Roles
- Oppressing Children’s Power and Independence
Parents are encouraged to complete the AAPI-2 and the Nurturing Skills Competency Scale (NSCS) to measure their progress in terms of knowledge, beliefs, and behavior. Based on pretest data, parents and parent educators collaboratively create a Family Nurturing Plan (FNP) tailored to address the specific parenting needs of individual families. The Family Nurturing Plan serves as a tool for measuring parents’ progress, while the Family Nurturing Journal (FNJ) helps parents monitor their own progress in learning the program competencies.
The Home Visitor’s Instructional Manual contains a comprehensive set of 55 individual lessons in parenting and 7 lessons covering family life in the military. Each lesson can be taught in a home-based setting, and the 62 available home visits are designed to target specific competencies that parents need to learn in order to improve their parenting practices. Weekly Home Practice Assignments further assist parents in developing and mastering nurturing parenting competencies throughout the program.
Resources:
- Manuals: Comprehensive guides for educators and facilitators outlining the program’s content and objectives.
- Resource Materials: Additional materials to enhance the learning experience for military families.
- DVDs and CDs: Audiovisual aids to effectively deliver the program content.
- Assessments and Evaluations: Tools to measure the program’s effectiveness and participants’ progress.
- Optional Online Resources: Supplementary resources available online for further learning and support.
- Optional Professional Manuals: In-depth resources for educators and facilitators seeking to enhance their skills.
- Optional Supplemental Materials: Additional resources to customize the program to specific needs.
5. Nurturing Father’s
The program provides a comprehensive set of materials designed to empower and support fathers in their journey of nurturing and parenting. Included are evaluation forms and certificates of achievement, as well as charts and posters to be used as teaching aids. The program also features an audio tape with prerecorded guided visualization activities to enhance the learning experience.
The heart of the program lies in two comprehensive Facilitator’s Manuals, offering step-by-step instructions for achieving specific learning objectives during each 2½ hour weekly group meeting. These meetings focus on various crucial aspects of fatherhood, addressing topics such as understanding the roots of fathering, nurturing both oneself and one’s children, and embracing the unique challenges of fathering sons and daughters.
Emphasizing positive discipline methods, the program explores how fathers can play with their children, manage anger, and resolve conflicts in healthy ways. It also delves into essential elements of fatherhood, including teamwork with one’s spouse or partner, finding the right balance between work and fathering, effective communication, problem-solving, and the influence of culture on parenting.
The program encourages fathers to explore and understand their emotions while envisioning the father they choose to be. To facilitate individual growth and reflection, each group member receives a companion Father’s Journal, an interactive workbook, to enhance their knowledge and personal development throughout the program.
This program serves as an invaluable resource for fathers seeking to strengthen their relationships with their children and build a nurturing, supportive, and loving father-child bond.
Resources:
- Optional Professional Manuals: In-depth resources for facilitators and educators seeking to enhance their skills in working with fathers.
6. Nurturing God’s Way
The “Nurturing God’s Way” Parenting Program for Christian Families® is a unique and enriching program grounded in Biblical principles, specifically designed to enhance nurturing parenting skills within Christian households. This cultural adaptation of the Nurturing Parenting Program® seamlessly integrates the philosophy of nurturing parenting with key Biblical scriptures, emphasizing the importance of creating a safe, loving, and compassionate home environment where discipline, love, and compassion intertwine to foster healthy parent-child bonds.
Ideal for individuals planning to become parents in the future, those currently parenting, grandparents, or anyone involved in teaching and caring for children, this program offers a transformative experience based on faith and spiritual growth.
The program consists of twenty-one 2-hour sessions, meeting once a week for 21 consecutive weeks. Each session is deeply rooted in Biblical teachings, offering a comprehensive exploration of the whole counsel of God. Attendees learn essential aspects of family life, including the significance of forgiveness and prayer within a family context, how morals are developed through Biblical guidance, the role of physical discipline as described in the Bible, effective behavior management strategies, and more.
Emphasizing the importance of fostering healthy brain development, the program provides practical insights and guidance for parents to raise their children in a nurturing and God-centered manner.
For families with children, the program can incorporate a children’s component using other Nurturing Parenting Program curricula tailored to the appropriate age group. Participants, including parents and facilitators, often report feeling spiritually rejuvenated and deeply connected with their faith after completing this program, as it offers a profound spiritual retreat-like experience.
“Nurturing God’s Way” Parenting Program for Christian Families® offers a transformative journey, combining nurturing parenting skills with Biblical wisdom, allowing families to strengthen their bonds, nurture their children, and deepen their relationship with God in the process.
Resources:
- Optional Professional Manuals: Additional resources for facilitators and educators to deepen their understanding of the program and effectively support Christian families.
7. Family Nurturing Camp
The Family Nurturing Camp is a comprehensive and structured program designed to address the specific challenges faced by children at risk of maltreatment. This weekend program combines psychoeducational groups, family-based intervention, and therapeutic recreational and art activities to strengthen and preserve families while also providing much-needed family respite care.
Throughout the weekend, children participate in a range of engaging activities, including art projects, discussions, hikes, trust-building exercises, high ropes courses, and family-strengthening activities. Separate therapeutic nurturing groups are offered for parents, adolescents (13 years and up), youth (7-12 years), and young children (4-6 years), creating a supportive and tailored experience for each family member.
The nurturing group topics cover a wide range of essential areas, including empathy, behavior management techniques, family rules, identifying and expressing feelings, offering praise for being and doing, recognizing the strengths of children, self-awareness, and meeting one’s needs, among others.
Recreational activities add an element of fun and bonding to the program, fostering positive family interactions and enjoyable experiences. Families get to engage in crafts, sports, hay rides, high ropes challenge courses, canoeing, nature hikes, and singing around the campfire.
The combination of the intense weekend experiences of the “Nurturing Parenting Program” and the enjoyable, safe, and enriching camp setting has proven to be a powerful therapeutic intervention for families facing challenges in their interactions and relationships. The program not only equips families with essential parenting skills but also helps them forge positive connections, creating a nurturing and supportive environment for children at risk of maltreatment.
Resources:
- Manuals: Comprehensive guides for camp facilitators outlining the program’s content and objectives.
- Optional Professional Manuals: Additional resources for facilitators seeking to enhance their skills in leading therapeutic camps.
Takeaways
As social workers and workshop facilitators, incorporating secondary prevention (intervention) programs into your work can be highly beneficial in supporting at-risk youth, teen parents, and dysfunctional families. The range of available programs, such as Nurturing Skills for Families, Nurturing Skills for Teen Parents, Nurturing Fathers, etc., provides valuable resources to address diverse challenges and promote positive family dynamics. By utilizing these evidence-based programs and the accompanying resources, you can create nurturing communities and help individuals and families build healthier and happier futures.