Archive for the ‘The Five Protective Factors for Promoting Strong Families’ Category

Promoting the Five Protective Factors

Bookmark and Share Monday, October 4th, 2010

This chapter provides background and guidance for service providers and others on exploring the five protective factors with parents.  For each protective factor, you will find:

  • Brief background on why the protective factor is important for strengthening families and reducing the risk of abuse or neglect.
  • Suggested areas to explore and language to use as you partner with parents to identify family strengths and needs.
  • Strategies and resources that may serve to strengthen families.

For each protective factor, the focus is on helping parents identify and build on their own strengths and on empowering them to identify the best strategies to help them enhance their parenting capacity.  This gives the provider a foundation for working in partnership with the parent and family to explore opportunities for growth and support.

The five protective factors covered in this chapter are:

  • Nurturing and attachment- Building a close bond helps parents better understand, respond tom and communicate with their children.
  • Knowledge of parenting and of child and youth development- Parents learn what to look for at each age and how to help their children reach their full potential.
  • Parental Resilience-Recognizing the signs of stress and enhancing problem-solving skills can help parents build their capacity to cope.
  • Social connections- Parents with an extensive network of family, friends, and neighbors have better support in times of need.
  • Concrete supports for parents- Caregivers with access to financial, housing, and other concrete resources and services that help them meet their basic needs can better attend to their role as parents.

The words used with parents have a powerful impact on our ability to connect.  Providers are encouraged to engage community members in identifying ways to describe the protective factors that speak to that community.  For example, a group of parents from the Nisqually Nation in Washington State suggested, “Compassion, freedom, hope, community, and health.”

The resources and suggestions provided in this chapter are just a starting point for developing the parent-provider partnership.  Other considerations are equally important.  For example, the parent and provider should find a mutually comfortable place to meet, such as the parent’s home, a coffee shop, a picnic bench in a nearby park, or at a religious institution or school.  A casual setting may facilitate a more friendly and informal discussion.

For more information on protective factors that reduce the risk of child abuse and neglect, visit the Child Welfare Information Gateway webpage- Enhancing Protective Factors: www.childwelfare.gov/preventing/promoting/protectfactors

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Protective Factors for Strengthening Families

Bookmark and Share Wednesday, September 29th, 2010

Protective factors are conditions in families and communities, that when present, increase the health and well-being of children and families.  They are attributes that serve as buffers, helping parents who might otherwise be at risk of abusing their children to find resources, supports, or coping strategies that allow them to parent, even under stress.

For years, researchers have been studying both the risk factors common among families experiencing abuse and neglect and those factors that protect families who are under stress. There is growing interest in understanding the complex ways in which these risk and protective factors interact, within the context of a child’s family, community, and society, to affect both the incidence and consequences of abuse and neglect.

Why Focus on Promoting Protective Factors?

Research has found that successful interventions must both reduce risk factors and promote protective factors to ensure the well-being of children and families.  Focusing on promoting protective factors is a more productive approach than reducing risk factors alone because:

  • Protective factors are positive attributes that strengthen all families. A universal approach helps get needed support to families that may not meet the criteria for “at-risk” services, but who are dealing with stressors that could lead them to abuse or neglect.
  • Focusing on protective factors, which are attributes that families themselves often want to build, helps service providers develop positive relationships with parents.  This positive relationship is especially critical for parents who may be reluctant to disclose concerns or identify behaviors or circumstances that may place their families at risk.
  • When service providers work with families to increase protective factors,, they also help families build and draw on natural support networks within their family and community. These networks are critical to families’ long-term success.

Which Protective Factors are Most Important?

Research has shown that the following protective factors are linked to a lower incidence of child abuse and neglect.

  • Nurturing and Attachment. A child’s early experience of being nurtured and developing a bond with a caring adult affects all aspects of behavior and development. When parents and children have strong, warm feelings for one another, children develop trust that their parents will provide what they need to thrive, including love, acceptance, positive guidance, and protection.
  • Knowledge of Parenting and of Child and Youth Development. Discipline is both more effective and more nurturing when parents know how to set and enforce limits and encourage appropriate behaviors based on the child’s age and level of development. Parents who understand how children grow and develop can provide an environment where children can live up to their potential.  Child abuse and neglect are often associated with a lack of understanding of basic child development or an inability to put that knowledge into action.  Timely mentoring, coaching, advice, and practice may be more useful to parents than information alone.
  • Parental Resilience. Resilience is the ability to handle everyday stressors and recover from occasional crises. Parents who are emotionally resilient have a positive attitude, creatively solve problems, effectively address challenges, and are less likely to direct anger and frustration at their children. In addition, these parents are aware of their own challenges- for example, those arising from inappropriate parenting they received as children- and accept help and/or counseling when needed.
  • Social Connections. Evidence links social isolation and perceived lack of support to child maltreatment. Trusted and caring family and friends provide emotional support to parents by offering encouragement and assistance in facing the daily challenges of raising a family. Supportive adults in the family and the community can model alternative parenting styles and can serve as resources for parents when they need help.
  • Concrete Supports for Parents. Many factors beyond the parent-child relationship affect a family;s ability to care for their children. Parents need basic resources such as food, clothing, housing, transportation, and access to essential services that address family-specific needs (such as child care and heath care) to ensure the heath and well-being of their children. Some families may also need support connecting to social services such as alcohol and drug treatment, domestic violence counseling, or public benefits.  Providing or connecting families to the concrete supports that families need is critical.  These combined efforts help families cope with stress and prevent situations where maltreatment could occur.

These protective factors are critical for all parents and caregivers, regardless of the child’s age, sex, ethnicity or racial heritage, economic status, special needs, or whether he or she is raised by a single, marred, or divorced parent or other caregivers. All of these factors work together to reinforce each other; for example, parents are more likely to be resilient in times of stress when they have social connections and a strong attachment to their children. Protective factors can provide a helpful conceptual framework for guiding any provider’s work with children and their families.

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Concrete Support for Parents

Bookmark and Share Monday, August 9th, 2010

Many factors affect a family’s ability to care for their children. Families who can meet their own basic needs for food, clothing, housing, and transportation—and who know how to access essential services such as childcare, health care, and mental health services to address family-specific needs—are better able to ensure the safety and well-being of their children. When parents do not have steady financial resources, lack health insurance, or suffer a family crisis such as a natural disaster or the incarceration of a parent, their ability to care for their children may be at risk.

Poverty is associated with greater rates of child abuse and neglect, and families living in poverty often benefit from specific concrete supports, such as help with housing, food, transportation, childcare, clothing, furniture, and utilities. Partnering with parents to identify and access these resources in the community may help prevent the stress that sometimes precipitates child maltreatment. Providing concrete supports may also help prevent the unintended neglect that sometimes occurs when parents are unable to provide for their children.

Sharing Strategies and Resources to Strengthen Concrete Supports

Parents may not always know about community resources that can help meet their basic needs or how to access essential services. Language or cultural barriers may make it difficult for some parents to identify services and make the necessary contacts. Providing information and connections to concrete supports can be a tremendous help to families under stress or in crisis. You might provide contact information (a person’s name is most helpful) or help parents make the initial calls or appointments, depending on what parents say they need.

When specific services do not exist in your community, you may be able to work with parents or community leaders to help establish them. Parents can become powerful advocates for a particular cause, such as low-cost, after-school programs or safe transportation for teens, if they know the process for forming groups and creating services.

Your expertise may be most helpful in the following ways:

Linking families with services

  • Parents may not be aware of services that could help. You can let them know about all available resources, so they may select what is most appropriate for their needs.
  • Parents are more likely to use culturally appropriate services. If you can link them with a service provider who speaks their language or comes from a similar background, parents may feel more comfortable and experience a greater benefit.
  • Parents with many needs may be overwhelmed by the different requirements for accessing various services. A “systems of care” approach may be most useful, in which different helping systems work together to support the family.

Building community services

  • Linking parents with community leaders and others to organize support, advocacy, and consulting groups gives parents the opportunity to use their experience to help others.
  • Parents who go public with their need or cause usually find that they are not alone. The fact that a parent is willing to publicize a need or cause may mobilize the community.
  • Parents who are new to advocacy may need help connecting with the media, businesses, funding, and other parts of the community to have their needs heard and identify solutions.

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Social Connections

Bookmark and Share Saturday, August 7th, 2010

Parents with a social network of emotionally supportive friends, family, and neighbors often find that it is easier to care for their children and themselves. Most parents need people they can call on once in a while when they need a sympathetic listener, advice, or concrete support. Conversely, research has shown that parents, who are isolated, with few social connections, are at higher risk for child abuse and neglect.

Some parents may need to develop self-confidence and social skills to expand their social networks. Helping parents identify resources and/or providing opportunities for them to make connections within their neighborhood or community may encourage isolated parents to reach out. Often, opportunities exist within faith-based organizations, schools, hospitals, community centers, and other places where support groups or social groups meet.

Sharing Strategies and Resources to Strengthen Social Connections

If parents express an interest in making social connections, you may want to offer suggestions, information, or services. Sometimes parents will not identify a lack of social connections or emotional support as an issue. Instead, they may be concerned about a child’s behavior problem or their own depression. In addressing the parent’s concerns, you can also provide information about how these needs might be met by connecting with others (e.g., a support group for parents with similar issues). You can also provide general information on how expanding social connections can reduce isolation and support parents.

Consider sharing the following:

Benefits of a broad social network

  • Helps ease the burden of parenting
  • Models positive social interactions for children and gives children access to other supportive adults
  • Provides support in crises
  • Offers opportunities to help others

Ways to broaden a social network

  • Overcome transportation, childcare, and other barriers—for instance, taking a bus or carpool to a play group orjoining a babysitting co-op to meet other parents and have occasional childcare
  • Access community resources, especially those with which the parent has some experience (a church he or she attended, a Head Start program where the child is enrolled, a cultural center that offers services in the parent’s native language)
  • Join a parent’s group or play group in the neighborhood, or start a new group

And if a group does not already exist . . .

Some neighborhoods and communities provide ample opportunities for neighbors to come together and friendships to develop. In other cases, agencies and organizations may welcome help in starting groups that bring families together for mutual support. These groups might start as an outgrowth of a widely recognized need in the community, such as new families that have just moved to the area or concerned citizens working against community violence. Community involvement is critical for these groups to be sustained over time. As a service provider, your role might be to bring individuals together
(including parents), providing a meeting place, or simply encouraging a community leader to establish a group to meet a particular need.

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Parental Resilience

Bookmark and Share Thursday, August 5th, 2010

Parents who can cope with the stresses of everyday life, as well as an occasional crisis, have resilience; they have the flexibility and inner strength necessary to bounce back when things are not going well. Parents with resilience are generally able to cope on their own, but they also know how to seek help in times of trouble. Their ability to deal with life’s ups and downs serves as a model of coping behavior for their children.

Multiple life stressors, such as a family history of abuse or neglect, health problems, marital conflict, and domestic or community violence—and financial stressors such as unemployment, poverty, and homelessness—may reduce a parent’s capacity to cope effectively with the typical day-today stresses of raising children.

All parents have inner strengths or resources that can serve as a foundation for building their resilience. These may include faith, flexibility, humor, communication skills, problem-solving skills, mutually supportive caring relationships, or the ability to identify and access outside resources and services when needed. All of these strengthen the capacity to parent effectively. In addition, community services that help families in crisis include mental health programs, substance abuse treatment, family and marital counseling and special education and treatment programs for children with special needs.

Sharing Strategies and Resources to Promote Parental Resilience

When parents identify and communicate what worries them most, there is an opportunity to offer some coping strategies and resources to begin to deal with the stress. Parents are not always aware how their ability to cope with stress may impact their capacity to parent and their children’s development. You can help parents recognize that they can model coping behaviors for their children, since children observe and imitate parents in many ways. Empowering parents to seek help and take steps to combat stress is part of building both resilience and hope.

Some needs are obvious to all family members and to providers. Other needs, such as marital counseling or substance abuse treatment, may become apparent when one family member expresses concern about another. Partnering with the family includes helping all family members translate their concerns into specific needs that can be discussed and resolved. Many community resources and services are available to help families cope. Faith communities, community colleges, self-help groups, and social service agencies can help parents and caregivers develop problem-solving and communication skills that strengthen their ability to deal effectively with crisis, so they can continue to provide for their children.

Resources for building resilience may include information about:

Stress—causes and results

  • How stress happens, including the “little things” that add up
  • Ways to recognize stress and its triggers
  • How stress affects health and coping
  • How stress affects parenting, marriage, and family life

Finding ways to build resilience

  • Stress management techniques, such as regular exercise, relaxation to music, and meditation or prayer
  • How to prevent stress by planning ahead, anticipating difficulties, and having resources in place
  • How to anticipate and minimize everyday stress
  • How to handle major stressors, including accessing resources and supports from family, friends, faith communities, and other community resources
  • Family management techniques, such as effective ways of communicating needs and concerns
  • Programs that offer family-to-family help or mentoring for personalized, intensive, sustained services or support, especially in times of crisis
  • Community supports such as mental health and counseling services, substance abuse treatment, domestic violence programs, and self-help support groups

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Knowledge of Parenting and of Child and Youth Development

Bookmark and Share Wednesday, August 4th, 2010

Parents know their children best—their unique behaviors, interests, and abilities.

But it is challenging for any parent to be an expert on all aspects of infant, child, and teenage development or the most effective ways to support a child at each stage. When parents are not aware of normal developmental milestones, or they do not know how to respond to and effectively manage a child’s behavior, they can become frustrated and may resort to harsh discipline or emotional withdrawal.

There is extensive research linking healthy child development to effective parenting. Children thrive when parents provide not only affection, but also respectful communication and listening, consistent rules and expectations, and safe opportunities that promote independence. Successful parenting fosters psychological adjustment, helps children succeed in school, encourages curiosity about the world, and motivates children to achieve. Parenting skills cannot be static; as children grow and mature, parents need to change the way they respond to their children’s needs. In addition, parenting styles need to be adjusted for each child’s individual temperament and unique circumstances.

Sharing Strategies and Resources to Strengthen Parenting

When parents have shared their concerns and perspectives on their children, there is an opportunity to explore solutions and share resources. Educational materials about parenting and child development may help parents assess their child’s development relative to others of the same age, have realistic expectations for their child’s behavior, and explore ways to communicate those expectations effectively. Helpful resources for enhancing knowledge of parenting and of child and youth development may include information about:

Child and youth development

  • What parents can expect and look for as the child or youth grows,
  • The ability of children or teens to understand and control their behavior at different ages,
  • Addressing developmental challenges such as inconsolable crying, bedwetting, eating or sleeping problems, lying, school issues, problems with peers, and puberty,
  • How to keep children safe, including information on shaken baby syndrome, sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), childproofi ng strategies, appropriate childcare, and safety in the community.

Parenting

  • How a parent can guide a child’s behavior and reinforce desired/appropriate behavior,
  • Ways that a parent can model desirable behavior,
  • Non-punitive disciplinary techniques, such as setting limits, redirecting attention or behavior, and logical consequences for actions.

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Nurturing and Attachment

Bookmark and Share Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010

Parents today have a lot on their plates. Juggling the demands of work, home, and other responsibilities leaves many parents feeling like they do not have enough time with their children. But even small acts of kindness, protection, and caring—a hug, a kiss, or a smile—make a big difference to children. Research shows that babies who receive affection and nurturing from their parents have the best chance of developing into children, teens, and adults who are happy, healthy, and competent. Research also shows that a relationship with a consistent, caring adult in the early years is associated in later life with better academic grades, healthier behaviors, more positive peer interactions, and an increased ability to cope with stress.

Brain development in infants is positively affected when parents work to understand and meet their basic needs for love and affection or provide comfort when they are hungry, bored, tired, wet, or cold. Conversely, neglectful and abusive parenting can have a negative effect on brain development. Research shows that a lack of contact or interaction with a caregiver can change the infant’s body chemistry, resulting in a reduction in the growth hormones essential for brain and heart development. Furthermore, the ability to feel remorse and empathy are built on experience. Children who lack early emotional attachments or who grow up fearful and expecting to be hurt will have a diffi cult time relating to peers.

As children grow, nurturing by parents and other caregivers remains important for healthy physical and emotional development. While physical contact becomes less important, listening and talking become more vital to the relationship. Parents nurture their older children by being involved and interested in the child’s school and other activities, aware of the child or teen’s interests and friends, and willing to advocate for the child when necessary.

When parents spend time and energy discovering and paying attention to their children’s needs, they are rewarded with positive, open, and trusting relationships with their children. Parents who develop the ability to respond sensitively to the needs of their child, no matter what age, will fi nd parenting easier and more enjoyable.

Exploring Strengths and Needs
Regardless of the child’s age, parents can take advantage of opportunities in their sometimes hectic lives to listen and respond to their child in a nurturing way. Even a few minutes of quality time in the car, at the store, or while cooking dinner mean so much to a child.

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Promoting the Five Protective Factors

Bookmark and Share Monday, August 2nd, 2010

The five protective factors are:

  • Nurturing and attachment—The importance of early bonding, as well as nurturing throughout childhood helps parents build a close bond with their children and better understand, respond to, and communicate with their children.
  • Knowledge of parenting and of child and youth development—Information about what to anticipate as children develop and strategies for effective parenting will help parents learn what to look for at each age and how to help their children reach their full potential.
  • Parental resilience—How parents cope and problem solve affects their ability to deal effectively with everyday stress or a major crisis. Recognizing the signs of stress and knowing what to do about it can help parents build their capacity to cope.
  • Social connections—Identifying ways to help parents expand their social networks and build a broader base of parenting support is very important. Parents with an extensive network of family, friends, and neighbors have better support in times of need.
  • Concrete supports for parents—Finding out what basic resources are available in the community and how to access them to address family-specifi c needs such as fi nancial, housing, etc. will help families meet their basic needs and allow parents to attend to their role as parents. Caregivers with access to fi nancial, housing, and other concrete resources that help them meet their basic needs can better attend to their role as parents.

Which Protective Factors Are Most Important?

Research has shown that the following protective factors are linked to a lower incidence of child abuse and neglect:

Nurturing and Attachment. A child’s early experience of being nurtured and developing a bond with a caring adult affects all aspects of behavior and development. When parents and children have strong, warm feelings for one another, children develop trust that their parents will provide what they need to thrive, including love, acceptance, positive guidance, and protection.

Knowledge of Parenting and of Child and Youth Development. Discipline is more effective when parents know how to set and enforce limits and encourage appropriate behaviors based on the child’s age and level of development. Parents who understand how children grow and develop can provide an environment where children can live up to their potential. Child abuse and neglect are often associated with a lack of understanding of basic child development—or an inability to put that knowledge into action. Timely mentoring, coaching, advice, and practice may be more useful to parents than information alone.

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Protective Factors

Bookmark and Share Sunday, August 1st, 2010

What are Protective Factors?

Protective factors are conditions in families and communities that, when present, increase the health and well-being of children and families. They are attributes that serve as buffers, helping parents who might otherwise be at risk of abusing their children to fi nd resources, supports, or coping strategies that allow them to parent effectively, even under stress. Protective factors are positive attributes that strengthen all families, not just those at risk, so families do not feel singled out or judged.

For years, researchers have been studying both the risk factors common among families experiencing abuse and neglect and those factors that protect families who are under stress. There is growing interest in understanding the complex ways in which these risk and protective factors interact, within the context of a child’s family, community, and society, to affect both the incidence and consequences of abuse and neglect. For each protective factor, the focus is on helping parents identify and build on their strengths and on empowering them to identify strategies for enhancing their parenting capacity.

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