Evaluation Shows Sustained Improvement in Parental Confidence and Child Behaviour Six Months Post-Programme
Recent evaluations of the Parents Plus programme for parents of children with ADHD have revealed significant positive outcomes. Conducted by Assistant Psychologist at Parents Plus, Liam McGrattan in collaboration with ADHD Ireland and CAMHS, these evaluations provide valuable insights into the effectiveness of this evidence-based parenting programme developed by Parents
Plus.
Positive Outcomes from Parents Plus ADHD Programme Evaluations
Between 2022 and 2023, Parents Plus evaluated the Parents Plus ADHD Programme, gathering feedback from 118 parents of children diagnosed or expected of having ADHD. This evaluation incorporated both quantitative and qualitative research methods, providing a well-rounded view of the programme’s effectiveness.
According to the study, parents experienced significant improvements in managing their child’s behavioural symptoms associated with oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) and ADHD symptoms of inattention. Parental satisfaction remained high six months after the programme ended, indicating that the Parents Plus ADHD Programme has long-term, positive effects on families. The quantitative evaluation revealed that parents felt more confident in managing and understanding their child and ADHD after completing the programme.
John Sharry (Clinical Director of Parents Plus) commented on the programme’s impact:
This evaluation provides strong evidence that the Parents Plus ADHD programme equips parents with the tools and knowledge to support their children effectively. The results show that the benefits extend well beyond the duration of the programme.”
Building Support Networks Through Solution-Focused Group Work
The qualitative evaluation further highlighted the positive experience parents had during group sessions. Many participants found support in sharing experiences with others facing similar challenges. This led to the development of friendships and support networks, where parents could exchange ideas and offer advice to one another on managing the unique challenges of parenting a child with ADHD.
Parents also appreciated the Parents Plus ADHD programme materials, such as the parent book, which provided ongoing resources and information even after the programme had ended. These materials helped parents feel more able to manage future challenges.
Parents Plus Commitment to Evidence-Based Parenting Programmes
Parents Plus is committed to providing high-quality, evidence-based parenting programmes. Its ongoing evaluations ensure that the Parents Plus ADHD programme continues to meet the evolving needs of parents and children in Ireland, the UK and beyond. For more information about the Parents Plus ADHD Programme, including training opportunities for facilitators, visit our dedicated webpage.
Building capacity of services to improve outcomes for children and families.
As we look back on 2023, we would like to acknowledge the impact made possible with the services we work with, across mental health, disability, family support, education and youth services.
Through building the capacity of these services to improve outcomes for families by training and supervising their teams to deliver and evaluate our evidence-based parenting and mental health programmes, we continue, together, to ensure that families can avail of proven parenting support, at their point of need, and in the their local communities.
Together, we have continued to deliver on our mission, and we look forward to even greater impact in the future.
I am pleased to present Parents Plus Annual Report 2023, which is an important opportunity to look back at 2023, spotlight our charity’s key achievements and activities, and acknowledge the challenges facing our sector.
As a small Irish charity, with over 25 years’ experience researching and developing evidence based parenting and mental health interventions for services supporting families, I am incredibly proud of the invaluable work and collective commitment of Parents Plus team, and voluntary board of trustees, to deliver on our mission to improve outcomes for children, adolescents and their families, by empowering professionals to deliver and evaluate our programmes through their services in local communities. Without you, none of this life changing work would be possible.
Our model of developing tailored parenting and mental health interventions in partnership with services and families for services and families, means that teams are better equipped to work collaboratively with parents to achieve the outcomes they define for their family, with our proven programmes, supervision, evaluation and outcome tracking. Indeed, our model of reinvesting all profits made from sale of our professional parenting and mental health intervention packages into development of new programmes to respond to the evolving needs of families, and in sponsorship of services with limited funding, to train in our programmes, emphasises our steadfast commitment to working together with community, mental health, disability and education services, to improve outcomes for families.
I would like to extend a special thank you to our funders of 2023 including The Community Foundation Ireland and The RTÉ Toy Show Appeal, An Pobal and The JP Mc Manus Benevolent Fund. We are extremely grateful for your support, which enables us to continue to provide our evidence-based and subsidised services at affordable rates to services supporting families, children and adolescents.
Building on the work done in 2022 to increase the impact of Parents Plus charity, and guided by Parents Plus Strategic Plan 2022 – 2025, developed in partnership with Rethink Ireland, 2023 was an extremely busy year for Parents Plus with the charity working with over 900 professionals across the community, mental health, disability and education sectors. The charity trained over 740 professionals in the delivery of our suite of evidence-based programmes and provided supervision and implementation support to 283 practitioners. We also delivered seminars to a range of professionals across Child and Adolescent Mental Health (CAMHS), disability, family support and education, in key areas such as ‘Improving outcomes for children with ADHD by empowering parents’, and master classes in Solution-Focused Groupwork.
A significant milestone in 2023 was the announcement in December of Parents Plus three year partnership with the HSE. The partnership with HSE Disability Division, will see our charity work with the 92 Children’s Disability Network teams (CDNTs) and provide our proven trainings and implementation support for 160 practitioners over the next three years, to build their capacity to improve outcomes for families with evidence-based parenting support, the Parents Plus Early Years Programme and Special Needs Programme, as well as provision of tailored workshops on the Parents Plus Solution Focused Model of working with families, and supervision, accreditation and evaluation support.
Other notable milestones of 2023 include the continued RTÉ Toy Show Appeal transformative grant funded delivery of online Parents Plus programmes to families via Parentline, ADHD Ireland and the Midwest Parenting When Separated Project, as well as the JP McManus Benevolent funded training and supervision of services in Limerick and Clare in the delivery of the Parents Plus Special Needs and Early Years Programmes.
2023 saw Parents Plus charity continue to build the capacity of a wide range of public and community and voluntary sector organisations to improve outcomes for families and children, including the TUSLA Traveller Project, the National Council for Special Education (NCSE) to roll out the Adolescents and Working Things Out programmes in secondary schools, and supporting the Tavistock and Relate services in the UK to deliver the Parenting when Separated Programme.
The charity also continued to invest in infrastructure to support growing the impact of our evidence-based services, including investment in HR consultancy, external governance review, PR expertise, SORP reporting, and salesforce functionality, all continuing to enhance delivery of high standards of governance and regulatory requirements, as well as our purpose and mission.
Without question, as with all services in the charitable sector, the economies we are working in remain challenging. Many of the services we worked with in the UK in 2023 experienced significant budget cuts. Parents Plus also experienced the challenges of rising costs to deliver our services across, for example, print and distribution. Nonetheless, the need for our services has increased considerably, and the charity has observed gradual recovery and steady progress.
As a member of the Parents Plus team since 2019 I was proud to accept the position of CEO of this invaluable charity in June 2023. The issue of inequitable access to proven parenting interventions for parents raising children, via services in their local communities, remains a challenge. However, as we embark on 2024, we are confident that as a team, and with the services we support, we can and will collectively make a significant positive impact in driving our mission forward and achieve our vision of a country where families in need have access to proven and tailored parenting tools from the services they turn to, in their communities, early on in their journey, improving their outcomes and preventing difficulties arising.
2022 was a year of significant growth and development for Parents Plus with the charity focusing on increasing the impact of our work in Ireland, the UK and internationally, guided by the new Parents Plus Strategic Plan 2022 – 2025.
Eight strategic goals have been developed, setting out the high-level aims which underpin our vision for Parents Plus, and the services and families we set up to serve.
You can read more about the impact our charity made and how we have been delivering on our ambitious strategy through investment in expanding our team, ongoing research, building internal capacity to engage more services, raising the profile of the charity with key stakeholders at national and regional levels, as well as investing in resources to make our processes more streamline with expertise brought in across website development and PR.
Read the full report and learn all about the impact we made in our 2022. The report is available to download below.
Parents Plus, a leading provider of evidence-based parenting programmes for services, has released new research showing the positive impact of their Special Needs Programme on children with special needs and their families.
The research, conducted by Dr Suzanne McMahon and colleagues at the School of Psychology, Trinity College Dublin, and published in the Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities, evaluated the effectiveness of the Parents Plus Special Needs Programme (PPSN), a seven-week parenting group intervention for parents of adolescents with intellectual disabilities.
In a cluster randomised controlled trial, 24 intellectual disability services supporting families of adolescents with an intellectual disability were assigned to PPSN (12 services; 141 parents) or a waitlist control group (12 services; 136 parents). Primary outcomes were parent-reported parenting practices, family adjustment, problem behaviours, emotional problems, and prosocial behaviours. Secondary outcomes were parental satisfaction, parental self-efficacy, and goal attainment.
Key findings from the research include:
Improved Child Outcomes. The programme effectively improves children’s behaviour, emotional regulation, and social skills. Parents reported that their children showed significant improvements in these areas, including better communication, increased ability to express emotions appropriately, and improved social interaction with peers.
The programme effectively improves children’s behaviour, emotional regulation, and social skills. Parents reported that their children showed significant improvements in these areas, including better communication, increased ability to express emotions appropriately, and improved social interaction with peers.
Enhanced Parental Wellbeing: The programme also had a positive impact on the mental health and well-being of parents, reducing their stress levels and improving their relationships with their children. Parents reported feeling more connected to their children and more able to enjoy their time together.
Improved Professional Practice: Professionals who received training in the programme reported feeling more knowledgeable and confident in supporting families of children with special needs. They also reported that the programme provided them with practical strategies and tools that they could use in their work with families.
The Parents Plus Special Needs Programme is a 6-8 week group-based intervention designed to support professionals working with parents and carers of children with intellectual disabilities including developmental disabilities such as autism, and ADHD. Delivered by trained professionals working in the community, education, health and disability services the programme focuses on reducing stress and supporting parent and child well-being.
Commenting on the research, Dr John Sharry, Founder and Clinical Director of Parents Plus, said: “We are thrilled with the positive results of this research. The Special Needs Programme was developed in partnership with families and disability services and has always been grounded in evidence-based practice, and this study shows that it is a powerful tool for promoting the well-being of children and families. We are delighted to see that it is making a real difference in their lives.”
Ciara Ni Raghallaigh, Parents Plus Special Needs Programme Coordinator says of the research “Clinicians and therapists working with children and families who are facing the challenges of raising a child with special needs will be heartened by this recent research. As someone who has worked in disability services for many years using Parents Plus programmes, I have seen first-hand the transformative impact that this programme can have on families, and I am delighted that this research has provided further validation of its effectiveness.”
With the prevalence of special needs children increasing worldwide, the findings of this research highlight the importance of evidence-based interventions that ensure services are supporting parents and carers in promoting positive outcomes for children with special needs. The Parents Plus Special Needs Programme provides a valuable resource for professionals working with children and adolescents with special needs and their families.
Earlier this year our CEO, Cherie Tyner and Ciara Ni Raghallaigh, Special Needs Programme Co-Ordinator had the honour of presenting to the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Disability Matters for consideration of Family Centred Practice and Parent Training Interventions. You can read about this important day for our organisation and this unique and vital programme here.
The Parents Plus Special Needs Programme is practical, solution-focused and draws on parents strengths. It is suitable for professionals including social workers, therapists, teachers to assist parents who are raising an older child or adolescent with a mild, moderate or severe intellectual disability, and who may also have an additional diagnosis, such as Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) or a physical disability.
See here or click the image below for more information on the Special Needs programme.
Parents Plus is an evidence-based organisation that provides a range of services and professionals in Ireland and around the world. The organisation’s goal is to support professionals with the tools to help parents and caregivers in raising resilient, confident, and happy children and young people.
At the core of the Parents Plus approach is a commitment to research and evidence-based practice. The organisation believes that the best way to support professionals is to provide programs that are based on the latest research and best practices in the field of child and family psychology.
One of the key features of the Parents Plus approach is their commitment to rigorous evaluation of their programs. Each of the programs offered by the organisation has undergone extensive evaluation to ensure their effectiveness in improving outcomes for families. The evaluation reports are available on the website, providing transparency and accountability for the organisation’s work.
In a meta-analysis conducted by Dr. Alan Carr, the effectiveness of the Parents Plus Programs was evaluated in 16 studies, including over 1,000 families. The results show that the programs were effective in improving effective in reducing child emotion/behaviour problems, reducing parent stress, increasing therapeutic goal achievement and parental satisfaction and reducing children’s behaviour problems.
The meta-analysis included evaluating the Parents Plus Early Years Program, Children’s Program, Adolescent Program, and Working Things Out Program. The Parents Plus Early Years Program was found to be effective in improving parental sensitivity and children’s social-emotional development. The Children’s Program showed effectiveness in reducing children’s behaviour problems and increasing parental satisfaction with parenting skills. The Adolescent Program was effective in improving parental behaviour, reducing adolescents’ behaviour problems, and increasing family cohesion. Finally, the Working Things Out Program was effective in improving parental relationship satisfaction and reducing parental conflict.
Overall, the Parents Plus Programs showed a significant impact on families’ lives, with the effect sizes ranging from small to large, depending on the program evaluated. These programs have been shown to be effective in different settings, including community, clinical, and school-based interventions. Additionally, the meta-analysis showed that the Parents Plus Programs’ effectiveness was not limited to specific types of families or cultural groups.
The study also highlighted the importance of early intervention in improving outcomes for families. The Parents Plus Early Years Program, in particular, showed effectiveness in improving children’s social-emotional development, an area crucial for a child’s overall development.
Dr. Carr’s meta-analysis also noted the need for more research to evaluate the long-term effectiveness of the Parents Plus Programs. Additionally, further research is required to understand how the programs work, why they work, and how they can be tailored to meet the needs of different families.
In conclusion, the meta-analysis conducted by Dr. Alan Carr provides evidence of the effectiveness of the Parents Plus Programs in improving parental behaviour and reducing children’s behaviour problems. The study highlights the importance of early intervention and the need for more research to understand how these programs work and how they can be tailored to meet the needs of different families. The Parents Plus Programs offer a promising intervention for families seeking support in various settings, and their effectiveness is not limited to specific types of families or cultural groups.
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