Author
QUINTON David;
Title
Supporting parents: messages from research.
Publisher
Jessica Kingsley, 2004.
Summary
This book explores the range of supports that parents find effective and how those supports might be improved or better mobilized.
Context
For many years non-technical summaries of research programmes and initiatives funded by the Department of Health (DH) Children’s Social Care section have been produced, intended to make messages from the research useful and intelligible to policy makers, service providers and practitioners. Each is produced through a distinctive process and written by an academic expert, incorporating policy makers’ and practitioners’ comments, and tries to ensure that researchers are happy with the synthesis produced.
Method
The Supporting Parents initiative is unusual within this tradition in that it included such a diversity of projects. It was therefore not possible to convene a group to comment; such a group would have been too diverse for discussions to be productive. Instead, meetings between the researchers and the policy customers from the DH discussed emerging findings and their connection with the policymaking process. When the studies were nearly complete each team nominated two non-academic professionals knowledgeable in the topic and involved in service delivery who read and commented on the project. A smaller ‘overview group’ of policy makers and members of the independent and voluntary sectors also read and commentated on the overview text as it developed. Finally, when the text was sufficiently advanced relevant sections were sent back to the researchers for comments on their accuracy and on whether the important messages had been drawn out.
Contents
The report draws from studies on the general population as well as specific service users to highlight issues common to parents in a wide variety of circumstances. It is divided into 3 parts. The first. ‘Background and concepts’, has 3 chapters, on the Supporting Parents Research Initiative, support and parenting, and the policy context. The second, ‘Parenting and its supports’, has 4, on studies in the general population, studies of foster care, parenting and support in the context of disability, and supporting parents who may be hard to help. The third has a single chapter pulling together findings and ideas that go across the studies. Appendices give researchers’ summaries of their studies and list the readers and overview group members. There are also subject and author indexes.
ISBN 1 84310 210 2