How to Help a Struggling Parent Stay Committed to the Programme

Parents Plus trainer and supervisor Karin Todd shares her insights for supporting parents who feel stuck, despondent, or ready to give up.

Parents attending a Parents Plus programme are often under pressure and managing multiple challenges. They may believe they’ve tried it all and nothing works! It’s understandable that they can feel a bit stuck in their situation. Your role as a skilled Parents Plus facilitator can make an important difference in their experience of the programme. With the right support, parents can stay committed to and try out new ideas at home.

Here are eight key strategies to help you keep a despondent parent engaged throughout the programme:

1. Set Clear, Positive Goals

Before the programme begins, take time to meet with the parent for the all-important goal-setting session. Setting some positive, achievable goals for attending helps to motivate and focus a parent on the changes they want to see in their family.

2. Build Rapport Early and Often

From your first phone contact and goal setting meeting, through to your weekly group sessions, facilitators are tasked with creating a welcoming and non-judgemental space where trusting relationships flourish. These supportive relationships keep parents coming each week!

3. Highlight Their Strengths

What is already going well for this parent? What works for them and their child? When do they cope well?. Focusing on their strengths fosters a sense of progress and hope, helping them to feel more positive about the changes they’re working towards.

4. Encourage Group Support

The support of other parents in the group can be uplifting for a struggling participant.

Giving others in the group opportunities to empathise with their fellow-parent and offer support, ideas, reassurance is more powerful than anything we can say as a facilitator. 

5. Use Parent Session Review Forms

Taking time to review parents feedback each week can indicate if a parent is feeling despondent or at risk of drop-out. Are they feeling supported and understood by their facilitators and peers? If they are not clearly answering yes, then what might they need more of? If a parent shows signs of disengagement, check in to see what additional support they may need. Are they benefiting from the content, or would something different help them achieve their goals?

6. Check in Between Sessions

A quick call or message between sessions is a great way to support a struggling parent to stay engaged. We can offer advice or signposting if relevant but often a listening ear and the fact that you took the time to reach out makes all the difference when they are thinking about coming to the next session.

7. Offer Tailored Family Sessions

For parents facing specific challenges, use family sessions to coach them through problem-solving techniques. This personalised support can help them overcome barriers and stay motivated to apply new strategies at home.

8. Emphasise Self-Care

Self-care is an important thread through each weekly session. Supporting parents to assess how they are caring for themselves as well as their families is an investment of your group’s time. It can assist parents to identify meaningful ways to sustain their well-being not just for the duration of your programme but throughout their parenting journey. So that in times of despondence they can draw on supports and practices that will see them through.

For more tips on facilitating group sessions or to enhance your group facilitation skills, explore the resources in our Parents Plus members area! If you would like to train as a Parents Plus facilitator, find out more about our programmes.

Karin Todd is a Parents Plus trainer and supervisor and is an experienced facilitator of our evidence-based programmes.  Her professional background includes youth and community work, service management and therapeutic family work.  Karin has a special interest in adolescent psychotherapy and in the family experience of parental separation and loss.  She currently works n a community-based setting as a family support practitioner.