For Parents

Recognising this, at ConnectEd we offer programs of support, based on the Acceptance & Commitment Therapy/Training model, for parents and carers of young people, from birth to 21 years of age.  

These kinds of services are often commissioned by schools or other educational organisations who recognise, through working in partnership with their parents/carers, that some parents/carers would hugely benefit from additional support to build and develop their own wellbeing and resilience.  

Group-based parent wellbeing programs

At ConnectEd, we offer group-based wellbeing programs to support parental wellbeing, based on the Acceptance and Commitment Training (ACT) model. Group size can range from as little as five to as many as 20 parents/carers and the total in-session time is approximately 10 hours. Sessions can be adapted to accommodate the needs of individual cohorts of parents, meaning we can deliver:

• Three x 3.5 hour sessions

• Four x 2.5 hour sessions

• Five x 2 hour sessions

Whichever option is preferred, sessions are usually delivered between weekly and fortnightly.

The content of these programs has been studied extensively in research, demonstrating favourable outcomes in relation to general wellbeing and values-based living. Here you can find examples of research papers and other literature demonstrating effective outcomes from this program of support.

Sessions combine experiential learning exercises, such as mindfulness and values clarification work, and psychoeducational content, with the overall aim of supporting general wellbeing and consciously connecting with deeply held values, so as to bring these to life through personal action. 

Developing parental practice with the DNA-v model

Being a parent is not an easy job! Many parents (including us!) would say that being a good parent is one of the hardest jobs someone can take on. And what’s more, even parents who feel they are doing a pretty good job tend to recognise those uncomfortable little voices inside us saying things like “you can do a better job than this!” or “I need to try harder”.  Contrary to popular opinion, these little inner voices are not usually signalling that we are not doing a good enough job of parenting. Rather, they are reminders about how important our children are to us, and about how much being a good parent matters to us.

To support values-based, warm, caring and effective parental practice, at ConnectEd we offer an evidence-informed parental skills program, in the form of six two-hour group-based sessions for parents based on the ACT-for-youth model; DNA-v (Hayes & Ciarrochi, 2015).  

The DNA-v model describes six core psychological wellbeing skills known to be important in the development of children’s mental health, wellbeing and resilience. These include:

• Discoverer skills: Trying out new actions and tracking their effects, including how helpful or unhelpful they are.

• Noticer skills: Becoming aware of, and learning to name and describe, the world around us, as well as the world inside us: the world of thoughts, emotions and sensations.

• Advisor skills: Recognising that our thoughts can function as personal advisors, giving messages about what we should do or not do; do less of or do more of.  Developing advisor skills is about becoming aware of these kinds of thoughts and relating to them flexibly, such that we increasingly act on the helpful ones, allowing the unhelpful ones slip into the background.

• Values clarification skills: Exploring, clarifying and acting on the kinds of personal qualities we most want to be about in the world, in a particular situation or context.

• Flexible self-view skills: Human minds – young and old – are constantly throwing up a range of self-appraisal thoughts: “I am rubbish at that”, “I am awesome at that”, “she’s better than me”, “I am too short” and so on!  Developing children’s flexible self-view skills is about helping them develop a more flexible, and less literal, relationship with their self-stories, so they can focus their actions on building the life they most want to live.

• Flexible social view skills: Children’s minds also frequently throw up thoughts about their relationships with other people.  And what’s more, children (like adults) can often get stuck in these views.  Developing flexible social-view skills is about heling them to recognise that their words, actions and interactions can, if they chose to approach them in a certain way, positively influence the social world they experience, and help create.