Patterns of participation in the Grow parenting program

Journal of Children's Services, Ahead of Print. Purpose Employing brief, low-intensity, face-to-face parenting programs can result in improvements in parenting and child behavior; however, their usefulness is often limited by low participation rates. Online technologies are increasingly presented as a panacea for promoting program reach in a cost-effective way. The extant literature, however, provides limited guidance on issues around the implementation of online parenting programs. Grow is a universal, health-promoting parenting program that targets families with 5 –10 year olds and was developed for face-to-face delivery and then adapted for a web-based format. The purpose of this paper is to present implementation results from feasibility proof of concept studies of Grow Face-to-Face and Grow Online and explores issues regarding mode of delivery and parent participation. Design/methodology/approach Data were gathered from participants using attendance records, end-of-module/session surveys and semi-structured, in-depth interviews, and were examined using descriptive statistics and inductive thematic analysis. Findings Findings suggest that, compa red to the online implementation, recruitment was more difficult for the face-to-face implementation. Conversely, retention in the online program was poorer than in the face-to-face program. Participants from both programs self-reported high levels of engagement and satisfaction. Parents who complet ed Grow Online expressed a...
Source: Journal of Children's Services - Category: Child Development Source Type: research