NCJ Number
122304
Journal
Children Today Volume: 15 Issue: 2 Dated: (March-April 1986) Pages: 16-20
Date Published
1986
Length
5 pages
Annotation
Given the facts that children entering battered women's shelters have special needs for an effective and caring parent figure and that a mother's commitment to her child's welfare is often a motivating factor to entering a shelter, there is a growing recognition of the need for shelter-based parenting services.
Abstract
The Shelter Parenting Program offered by CHILD, Inc. at the New Castle County (Delaware) Battered Women's Shelter is an outgrowth of two pre-existing CHILD, Inc., programs -- the Parent Education Program and the Children's Program. The parenting program attempts to break the intergenerational cycle of violence by presenting information on essential parenting skills through instructional group formats and individual or family sessions. The shelter prohibits all physically violent interactions, including parent-child discipline. The formal curriculum focuses on increasing the mother's communication skills, self-control, empathy, parenting skills, and relationship-building techniques. The group format allows for support and acceptance of each participant as well as idea-sharing. To help mothers work on specific issues within the individual and family sessions, the staff counselors ask the mother to list her concerns regarding her child's behavior, determine what methods the mother has used previously to deal with problem behaviors, decide on acceptable methods for the mother to use, help the mother to anticipate future problems, identify possible motives underlying the problem behaviors, evaluate the success of the new methods, and provide reinforcement for follow-through by the mother. Two case studies illustrate the program's operation.