Full text loading...
Abstract
The quality of parenting children receive has a major influence on their development, well-being, and life opportunities. Of all the potentially modifiable influences that can be targeted through preventive interventions, none are more important than the quality of parenting children experience. Prevention interventions targeting parenting should be widely used to promote positive developmental outcomes for children and adolescents. This review argues that the development of comprehensive evidence-based strategies to improve the quality of parenting is best viewed as a major public health challenge. Using the Triple P-Positive Parenting Program as an exemplar, the initial development, gradual transformation into a public health model, and then global dissemination of the approach is described. The assumptions underpinning the public health approach to parenting support are discussed, along with key criteria that need to be met for the approach to work. Factors that facilitate and impede the global implementation and dissemination of evidence-based parenting programs are considered along with implications for future research, policy, and practice.