04 July 2008
Parents of teenagers in the Caerphilly county borough who are involved with the local Youth Offending Service are to benefit from having the opportunity to attend a support group, which offers advice on handling teenage behaviour.
The Safer Caerphilly Community Safety Partnership provides the primary funding for the scheme, which has been fully accredited by the National Assembly.
The scheme and its outcomes feed extremely well into the community safety partnership's key strategic priorities for the forthcoming year, which include further decreasing levels of anti social behaviour in the area.
The group, which is held quarterly at the Pontlottyn Family Centre, is run by representatives from the local Youth Offending Service (YOS) and family workers from the centre itself.
The programme incorporates elements of behavioural and relationship parent education techniques, with topics covered including:
- What children need and what it means to be a parent of a teenager
- Teenage development and different types of teenage behaviour
- Introducing and enforcing boundaries
- Consequences versus punishments
- Positive parenting
- Using rewards and communication to build positive relationships.
Jeremy Smith, Education Manager for the Youth Offending Service said, "This group has the aim of providing help and support to parents, who have the difficult job of bringing up teenagers in today's ever changing society.
Future Childcare Ltd, who own the material for the scheme and provide the training for its use, have conducted some in-house statistical analysis of the programme's effectiveness, by surveying professionals using the group. They found that 100% of those questioned felt that their client group has benefitted from the scheme, which is absolutely excellent."
Some of the comments made as a result of the statistical analysis include:
- "It has improved the relationship between the parents and their teenagers"
- "Parents are enjoying their teenagers being more involved and in some cases, it has lessened offending behaviour"
- "Every family involved has benefitted from the material".
Caerphilly county borough council's cabinet member for the environment, Cllr Lyn Ackerman said, "Groups such as this provide an excellent means of offering advice and support to parents of teenagers from across the local area. By improving parent/teenager relationships and by educating parents on valuable behavioural techniques, this will be of benefit to our community as a whole."
For further information, contact the Blackwood based Youth Offending Service on 01495 235623.
- Return to News