Why our charity exist
Parents Plus charity are leaders in developing, implementing, evaluating and disseminating evidence-based parenting and mental health interventions for services supporting families and children. Over the past 25 years, our charity has been working closely with teams across the community, mental health, disability, and education sectors, to build their capacity and skills to improve outcomes for families from the early years to adulthood.
Our focus is training and supervising these teams to improve outcomes for children, young people and parents in their communities at their point of need.
Below is an overview of our impact model.
The Parents Plus Impact Model
Train the Trainer
The Parents Plus portfolio of parenting and mental health programme training packages for professionals is effective:
- Universal programmes for all families raising children
- In prevention for disadvantaged and at-risk families
- As interventions for high-need families dealing with complex problems
Effective for children across different age groups, each programme can be delivered individually or in small groups, both in person and online, to parents and carers.
Supervision
Evidence shows that supervision and supporting facilitators through the accreditation process are integral to services maintaining improved outcomes for the families they work with, and why our charity provides two free supervision sessions to each professional trained in our programmes.
Capacity Building and Regional Rollouts
Our team of experts work closely with services across Community, Mental Health, Disability and Education, to build their capacity and skills to deliver and evaluate our proven interventions, tailored to the needs of local communities, as well as support regional and national rollouts, to ensure effective community-wide delivery
Sponsorship of services with limited funding
Parents Plus reinvests profits made in sponsoring services who work with high-need families, and who have limited funding, to train in and deliver our programmes in their communities.
Development of Further Evidence-Based Programmes for services
Parents Plus reinvests profits made into development of further programmes to build capacity of services to respond effectively to the evolving needs of families, as can be noted by the 2022 launch of the Parents Plus ADHD Children’s Programme and current research and development work.
Below is The Parents Plus Theory of Change: This is a framework that outlines how our vision and mission create positive outcomes for families and children by empowering parents, fostering resilience, and promoting social inclusion.
This is a statement from Professor Alan Carr, Founding Director of the UCD Doctoral Programme in Clinical Psychology, and Former Head of the UCD School of Psychology on the work and impact of our charity.
Parents Plus has developed eight flagship programmes in response to the evolving needs of families and young people, including their specific experiences.
Our programmes combine a social learning model with a solution-focused preventative framework that encourages and empowers parents, young people, and children to ‘take charge’ and make positive changes in their lives
Parents Plus trains and supports over 800 professionals as facilitators each year throughout Ireland, the UK and internationally.
Our bespoke train-the-trainer model ensures that professional service providers are best equipped to improve the lives of thousands of families and young people in a variety of settings, including family resource centres, child and adolescent mental health clinics; and disability services, childcare centres and preschools; primary and secondary schools; and child protection agencies.
Trained professionals include teachers, social workers, speech and language therapists, psychologists, family support workers, public health nurses, occupational therapists, psychiatrists, childcare workers, mental health workers, health promotion officers and community Workers.
To learn more about our programmes please visit our website at https://www.parentsplus.ie/parents-plus-programmes/ or email our Impact Lead Vicki Byrne at vicki@parentsplus.ie
