‘A Chance to Stand Back’: Parenting Programmes for Parents of Adolescents

‘A Chance to Stand Back’: ParentingProgrammes for Parents of AdolescentsKaren Clarke*Politics, School of Social Sciences, University of Manchester

Harriet ChurchillSociological Studies, University of Sheffield

Parenting interventions were an important feature of New Labour’s policies to combat social

exclusion. This paper critically examines parenting programmes for families with adolescents,

assessing national and local policy aims against the perspectives of women who took part in

a parenting course, which was the subject of a local evaluation. The paper argues that, while

there were important positive outcomes for the participants, the high levels of unmet need

which women reported reflect important disparities between the aims of the intervention, the

level of service provision, and the needs and concerns of mothers and grandmothers. � 2010

The Author(s). Children & Society � 2010 National Children’s Bureau and Blackwell Publish-

ing Limited.

Keywords: adolescence, family, intervention, parenting, policy and practice.

Introduction

The increasing identification of parents as responsible for the problem behaviour of theirchildren was given new impetus by the election, in 1997, of a Labour government. The gov-ernment invested substantial resources into supporting parents but also introduced a rangeof measures to hold parents accountable for their children’s behaviour (DfES, 2007; Gillies,2008). The re-organisation of children’s services, introduced in response to the LamingInquiry and implemented in the 2004 Children Act, identified the well-being of all childrenas a matter of state concern and reiterated the central role of parents in achieving this. Localauthorities were required to produce a Children’s and Young People’s Plan (CYPP) setting outtheir strategy for meeting their responsibilities in relation to children. From 2006 localauthorities were to include a Parenting Strategy as part of the CYPP, identifying how parents’needs for support were to be met and incorporating universal and targeted provision (DfES,2006).

There were two distinct starting points for policies aimed at parents. A range of policieswas introduced to prevent the long-term social exclusion of children living in poverty,including interventions with parents and children early in the life course and early in thegenesis of problems to promote particular parenting practices, through programmes such asSure Start (Melhuish and Hall, 2007). At the same time, starting from a different set of con-cerns about juvenile crime, antisocial behaviour and truancy, policies attempted to modifythe parenting practices of parents with older children, as a form of remedial action. Parent-ing Orders, introduced in the 1998 Crime and Disorder Act, under which parents of youngoffenders could be compelled to attend parenting classes, signalled the government’s

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� 2010 The Author(s)

Children & Society � 2010 National Children’s Bureau and Blackwell Publishing Limited

intention to hold parents responsible for their children’s misbehaviour and its belief thateducation for parents — in practice primarily mothers (Ghate and Ramella, 2002) — was aneffective means to bring about changes in children’s behaviour. Subsequent legislationextended the scope of Parenting Orders to include antisocial behaviour and truancy (Burneyand Gelsthorpe, 2008). As policies on social exclusion increasingly targeted a small minorityof families identified as ‘deeply socially excluded’ (SETF, 2006), the distinction betweenyouth offending and other indicators of social exclusion such as poor educational attain-ment became less clear cut, and the emphasis on modifying parenting practices in order toaddress and prevent a variety of child behaviour problems became more pronounced (Chur-chill and Clarke, 2010).

The principal means for changing parenting practices has been by ‘training’ parents throughstandardised group parenting programmes, such as the Webster Stratton Incredible Yearsprogramme, developed in the US, or the Australian Triple P programme. These programmestake a social learning approach, which emphasises parents’ capacity to learn from observingothers, and adopt behaviourist methods, using systematic reward and punishment to modifychildren’s behaviour. They aim to promote an ‘authoritative’ parenting style, characterised asinvolving a combination of ‘warmth and demandingness’ (Henricson and Roker, 2000,p. 765). As a number of critiques of the Labour governments’ policies point out, these pro-grammes involved the ‘professionalisation’ of parenting and the promotion of an implicit setof class and culturally specific values (Holt, 2008; Gillies, 2008). Belief in the efficacy ofthese group parenting programmes was based on the results of randomised controlled trials(e.g. Hutchings and others, 2007; Turner and Sanders, 2006) which focused on programmesaimed at the parents of younger children. There has been much less attention to the role andeffects of programmes for the parents of adolescents (Asmussen and others, 2007), which isthe focus of this paper.

The paper critically examines the policy rationales and objectives associated with parentingprogrammes for the parents of teenage children, by looking at the role of such programmesin the Parenting Strategy of one local authority. It compares the aims of the strategy withthe experiences and perspectives of parents of teenagers who took part in a parenting pro-gramme developed by the authority’s Educational Psychology Service (EPS), drawing on thefindings of a local evaluation of the programme.

The policy context: local authority parenting strategies

The case study authority serves a large northern city with relatively high levels of child pov-erty, educational underachievement and youth offending. Parenting education was a keycomponent of preventative provision in the city’s Parenting Strategy. The strategy documentidentified problems of antisocial behaviour, poor behaviour in schools and truancy as partic-ular issues for the city. Although the effects of material deprivation, poor mental health,domestic violence, substance abuse and population mobility were acknowledged as factorswhich had adverse effects on children, the principal focus of the strategy was on interven-tions with parents to support them to ‘meet their responsibilities’.

The city’s strategy identified four levels of support reflecting different levels of need, fromuniversal support through increasingly targeted support to statutory intervention. ‘Highquality, evidence-based parenting training’ was identified as the principal form of targetedsupport for parents. Webster Stratton courses were to be provided across all districts in the

Parenting Programmes for Parents of Adolescents 317

� 2010 The Author(s) CHILDREN & SOCIETY Vol. 26, 316–327 (2012)


city for parents of children aged 2–5, 5–8 and 8–12, with the programme developed by theEPS offered to the parents of teenagers. The strategy document also identified the need forthe development of multi-agency family support services and proposed an extensive map-ping exercise to identify the services currently available and gaps in services. This section ofthe strategy is noticeably weaker in terms of committing to increasing specific provision andit is clear that the focus of the parenting strategy was primarily on educating parents tomanage their children’s behaviour and school attendance. The strategy was therefore basedon an acceptance of the Labour government’s assumption that children’s behaviour isprimarily the responsibility of the parents and reflects the quality of their parenting.

The parenting course and the local evaluation

The development and initial delivery of the course for the parents of teenagers was fundedthrough the Children’s Fund, with provision starting in neighbourhoods classed as ‘antisocialbehaviour hotspots’. At the time that the Parenting Strategy was being developed (2005–2006) there was no evidence-based group parenting course for the parents of teenagers sup-ported by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Governance (the government-fundedbody with responsibility for national guidance on health issues). The programme developedby the EPS drew on the principles and curriculum of the Webster Stratton and Triple P pro-grammes, developed for the parents of younger children, also incorporating ideas fromcognitive behavioural therapy, which focuses on the relationships between thoughts, feelingsand behaviour. The course was the main provision within the Parenting Strategy for parentsof adolescents and involved eight 2 hour sessions, delivered weekly by two trainers workingwith a group of 6–10 parents (Table 1). The trainers came from a variety of professionalbackgrounds, and had all previously completed a Webster Stratton training course to deliverprogrammes for parents with younger children.

The original target group for the course was parents facing ‘mild to moderate parenting diffi-culties’, who accessed the programme on a self-referral basis and who had children makingthe transition from primary to secondary school. This was based on research evidence of theeffectiveness of parenting interventions at this transition point and parents’ desire for sup-port, especially in relation to the onset of problematic behaviour during this period (Rutterand others, 1998). However, in the first year the courses increasingly served parents ofchildren in their mid-teens with more severe problems, including mental health problems,offending and violence towards other family members, because of the lack of alternativeprovision for such families. This included a small number of parents who were compelled toattend under a Parenting Order.

Table 1 Summary of parenting programme sessions

Week 1: IntroductionWeek 2: Strong feelings: How not to murder your teenWeek 3: Time and Talk 1: Ending the shouting matchWeek 4: Time and Talk 2: Communicating and problem solvingWeek 5: Praise and Reward: More carrot and less stick!Week 6: Clear limits: Let’s take charge!Week 7: Ignore and sanctions: Say what you mean and mean what you sayWeek 8: Celebratory session: Putting it all together — look at what we’ve achieved

318 Karen Clarke and Harriet Churchill



Some short-term evaluation of the course was carried out by the trainers who asked partici-pants to complete a number of standardised measures of family conflict, child behaviouraldifficulties and parenting styles at the start and end of the course. These showed significantmodifications in parenting styles and reductions in levels of conflict and behavioural diffi-culties over the eight weeks of the course. The aim of the present study was to provide someevidence on the longer term impact of the course. In collaboration with the practitionersinvolved, we designed a multi-method study involving course participants 6 to 12 monthsafter they had completed the course. This paper draws on in-depth interviews conducted witha sample of 20 mothers and three grandmothers who had completed the parenting coursebetween October 2006 and December 2007. The sample was recruited through an earlierpostal survey and through a reunion event for course participants organised by the trainers.Although a small minority of course participants in the first year were men (8%), no menagreed to an interview. The characteristics of the interview sample are shown in Table 2. Therange of household circumstances of the women interviewed reflected those of the courseparticipants more generally. Participants were predominantly of white British origin, with ahigh proportion of lone mothers and of households with low incomes.

Mothers’ and grandmothers’ perspectives

This paper draws on the anonymised interview data to examine mothers’ ⁄ grandmothers’ rea-sons for attending the parenting course, their experiences of the course and the effects ontheir parenting practices, their relationship with their adolescent child and their child’sbehaviour.

Reasons for attending a parenting course

All those interviewed had attended voluntarily, although in some cases the course had beenrecommended to them by a professional who had become involved with the family becauseof the young person’s behavioural problems. [Grand]mothers came to the parenting coursewith a range of problems which varied widely in severity. Nine had no current problem orwere experiencing minor difficulties, such as moodiness or behavioural problems at school.These women attended the course in order to anticipate problems that might arise in future,or pre-empt the escalation of minor problems. Eight were dealing with moderately severe dif-ficulties such as non-attendance at school, behavioural problems at home, including runningaway, aggression towards other family members or involvement with the criminal justicesystem. They saw the course as a source of advice and guidance on how to deal with theseproblems. Six [grand]mothers were experiencing very severe difficulties with one or morechildren. These included serious mental health problems, persistent and serious involvementin crime, drug use and violence directed at themselves. For this latter group the problems

Table 2 Characteristics of interview sample

Ethnicity White British 21Other 2

Relationship to child Mother 18Foster mother 2Grandmother 3

Family status Lone parent ⁄ grandparent 13Married ⁄ cohabiting ⁄ civil partnership 7Step-family 3




were often one aspect of complex and long-standing family difficulties involving relation-ship breakdown, domestic abuse and serious health problems. Mothers and grandmothersfrequently felt isolated in trying to deal with such complex and inter-linked problems andhad received little effective help in the past from other services. They also felt that theirefforts to address their problems were given little recognition by others and were anxiousabout being blamed for their parenting difficulties. The women interviewed shared a strongsense of responsibility towards their teenage child and to wider family. This was particularlyevident in the case of the three grandmothers who had taken on principal responsibility fora grandchild in order to support a wider set of family relationships, at considerable cost tothemselves.

Beneficial programme outcomes and processes

All those interviewed felt that they had benefitted from the course, although this did notnecessarily mean that there had been significant changes in their child’s behaviour, or thatthe problem for which they had sought help had changed substantially. Mothers with minorproblems referred to being reminded of useful parenting tips, feeling more confident as aparent and enjoying the contact with other parents. Those with moderate problems valuedthe support from other parents and the normalisation of some of the difficulties they experi-enced such as sibling rivalry or mood swings, which helped reduce their anxiety and feelingsof inadequacy. For women with the most severe problems, the course provided an escapefrom very difficult situations at home, an opportunity to be listened to and space in whichto reflect and take some control of their situation.

Discussion with the trainers and with others gave many women new insights into their situa-tion. Participants reported having a new perspective on their own emotional reactions as aparent, and a new capacity to detach themselves from, and reflect on, these reactions:

A lot of it was thinking about where you were. If you have had a bad day you will deal with thingsterribly but if you have had a great day you will deal with things better. So before you do anythingthink about where you are.

Mothers felt that they had a greater capacity to respond to difficulties with their adolescentchild through their increased self-awareness.

Participants felt they had learned a number of useful techniques for dealing with theirteenage children, especially communication skills and new ways of relating to others. Theyreferred both to their greater general awareness of the significance of communication stylesand to particular techniques such as reflecting on the tone of voice used when asking a teen-ager to do something, ensuring eye contact during a conversation or asking questions whichwould elicit ‘more than a grunt’ in reply. [Grand]mothers talked about how the course hadhelped them to think about what they were saying from a teenager’s point of view. Thismeant having sometimes to suppress their own immediate response in order to prevent anargument escalating. A lone grandmother with two teenage grandsons talked about how shehad learned that ‘how you react dictates how it continues’. ‘You start it with being friendlyeven when they’re saying things that really you don’t like and upset you…you have to learnnot to say something back’.




The course had helped some women establish new structures and routines and maintain a setof enforceable ground rules. A number found more appropriate sanctions to apply whentheir teenager did not observe agreed rules or boundaries. Brenda had been taking all hergrandsons’ pocket money when they misbehaved, but realised through the course that thismeant they had nothing further to lose if the misbehaviour continued, so she had started totake a more graduated approach.

The course advocated an approach of ‘more carrot, less stick’, offering praise and rewards forpositive behaviours rather than focusing on punishing negative ones. One mother, of south-east Asian origin, described how this approach that was unfamiliar and initially hard toimplement, for cultural reasons:

They gave lots of feedback on giving rewards and praise. Because, from our culture, we don’t reallygive praise readily. Praise is not considered as that common. ‘Good’ and ‘Well done’. For me I findthat it is harder to praise the older ones, because I am not used to doing from when they were youn-ger.

Parents valued the informal support provided through the opportunity to share their experi-ences of parenting and to listen to others. Many reported feeling isolated and inadequate asparents and this aspect of the course was important in helping them to feel better aboutthemselves and their problems and empowering them to make changes:

One of the benefits of the course is the support from other mums. I thought ‘I’m not the only one’.There are other mums out there who are feeling similar things. Being able to talk about the roughtimes and the good times in that course is brilliant.

The course offered time out from daily routines and the opportunity to reflect on family life,facilitated by the skills and experience of the course trainers. This opportunity for sharedreflection led to new insights about possible solutions, greater self-confidence in their par-enting abilities and ⁄ or normalisation of their problems:

I needed to get more control in the situation and the course helped me do that...I was being a bitlax. I was able to take a step back and look at it for what it was. I could then think well that’s notright and I need to do something about it. The course gave me a chance to stand back.

The characteristics and approach of the course trainers, the context of learning in a groupand the course ethos were aspects of the process identified by participants as leading to posi-tive outcomes. Many talked about the anxiety they felt about being judged to be a ‘badmother’ because of the problems that they were experiencing with their adolescent children:

Sometimes when you say, oh, I’m on [a] parenting group, they look at you, you think they’re look-ing at you, say, oh she’s a bad mother...

The isolation many women felt was partly due to the effects of having ‘demanding’ children,or children with problematic behaviour or mental heath problems; and partly due to ‘keepingoneself to oneself’ for fear of being judged negatively by others. Participants detailed thesignificance of the welcoming, non-judgemental and informal ethos of the course in allayingtheir anxieties. Informality also dispelled fears that the course would be ‘like school’ and ‘dif-ficult’. Having trainers who were themselves parents, and who discussed their own parenting




experiences with the group meant parents felt that trainers could identify with them and thisin turn gave them confidence in the advice offered:

The trainers sat with the rest of the group. It wasn’t like a ‘them and us’ type thing. The trainerswere saying about their own experiences. I thought it was going to be more formal and more likeschool. But it wasn’t at all.

As noted above, mutual informal support was another important part of the process bywhich participants gained in self-confidence and felt empowered to implement the sug-gestions from the course. The method of delivery and ethos of the course modelled thekinds of parenting that it sought to promote. The experience of being ‘parented’ by thetrainers in the weekly group sessions created a supportive context which enabled partici-pants to make changes in their ways of relating to their teenage child and this was thenrewarded by the praise and encouragement provided by the trainers and other courseparticipants.

Limitations of the course

While a group parenting course offered the benefits of peer support, there were also prob-lems in meeting the needs of all parents because of the heterogeneity of the group, in termsof the nature and severity of the problems experienced and the diversity of parental circum-stances. Some participants felt they were in a visible ‘minority’ because of having a ‘prob-lematic’ teenager when the majority of the others on the course did not have similarproblems. Under these circumstances it could be difficult to maintain the coherence of thegroup. One lone grandmother who was experiencing very severe problems with her grandsonhad attended two courses. She described how, on the first course, the range of problemsmeant that in discussions they were divided into two subgroups on the basis of the severityof the problems that they faced:

The problem with the first course was that you had such different types of behavioural problems.One lady had a son playing up at school.. ⁄ ⁄ .. [Grandson] on the other hand locked a teacher in aroom with a mate and threatened her.. ⁄ ⁄ .. In the first group we got split into the ones with reallybad problems and the rest.

On the second course, the characteristics and experience of the trainer as well as the groupcomposition meant that it felt much more relevant to her experience and as a consequenceshe found it much more useful.

Some of the participants with the most severe problems felt that the techniques recom-mended by the course were often more appropriate for younger children and were not rele-vant or appropriate to the situations that they were dealing with or for engaging withteenagers. Others identified particular course sessions or parenting strategies as less directlyrelevant to their family circumstances.

Very few mothers attended with their partner and this was problem for those who were liv-ing with a partner, or whose ex-partner continued to have an involvement with their child.These women found it difficult to implement the parenting strategies advocated where theirpartner, having not attended the course, was not also committed to them. Women describedmen as unwilling to attend because they did not want to be told what to do, because of the




different nature of their relationship to their child and also for practical reasons, such as thetiming of the course in relation to men’s work commitments. At the same time, one motheracknowledged that for those women who had experienced domestic violence, the presence offathers on the course might be unwelcome. Trainers did not always find it easy to includethe small minority of men who attended:

[The trainers] were saying, ‘All us mums know what it’s like dealing with kids’ And then they’d say‘For all the women in the room’, and then they’d go, ‘Oh, excuse you’ And every time it was a bitlike, ‘Well you’re not meant to be there’ sort of.

A widespread complaint from mothers was that there was not enough time in the weeklycourse sessions for talking to, listening to and supporting other parents. The most commonconcern was that there was ‘not enough time to really get to know the other parents’ or notenough emphasis placed on informal group discussion.

A significant factor limiting the effectiveness of the course from parents’ perspective, partic-ularly those with more complex and severe problems, was its inability to address the contin-uing stresses and pressures on families arising from health problems, financial difficulties orwork pressures. Where parents were unable to secure appropriate support in dealing with achild’s drug use or gang involvement, or with mental health or other health problems, theparenting course could only make a limited impact. It provided valued personal support forparents under such circumstances, but often revealed needs without being able to ensure thatservices were in place to address them. Without careful planning to ensure adequate multi-agency co-operation parents could feel ‘dropped’ at the end of the eight-week course and leftto deal with their problems with little further support.

Outcomes for young people

The limited funding for the study meant it was not possible to engage directly with the teen-age children of the course participants to find out how their parent’s participation in thecourse had affected them, and it is striking that the course itself did not engage with youngpeople themselves, despite its intention to change young people’s behaviour. Maternalaccounts often pointed to the interaction of a number of different factors in producingchanges in family relationships. A number of mothers reported that there had been a sus-tained improvement in their child’s behaviour at school and at home following the course.They attributed this to the combined impact of the changes they made in their parenting andtheir children ‘growing older’. One lone mother who had a very conflictual relationship withher daughter described how the course had ‘saved her and her daughter’. Her daughter wasnot attending school at the time she went on the parenting programme. She said: ‘If I hadn’tdone the course, I don’t like to think where I’d be now. Alice wouldn’t be in school and Iwouldn’t be in work’.

Sometimes the course had precipitated a number of other changes which taken together hadled to an improvement in the family situation, so that the course by itself was not the reasonfor change, but was a significant contributory factor, in a complex situation. Kim, a lonemother with two teenage sons who had severe problems, noted how she had made a numberof changes that had helped to improve family life simultaneously with attending the parent-ing course. She had left her demanding full-time job and had more time to spend with hersons, who had been deeply affected by years of domestic abuse. She was coping with




the aftermath of these experiences as well as her sons’ drug use, problems with school andtheir mental health problems. In this context, Kim felt that the course had provided her withparenting and communication strategies that she introduced gradually and were one elementin the improvements she had observed.

For some parents, improved communication skills and confidence helped them in their con-tact with other services or in negotiating family relationships. Contact with schools, forexample, was an issue that concerned many mothers. Some participants reported being moreassertive or effective in their communication with their child’s school, with benefits for theyoung person. In other cases the course provided the impetus for making changes whichaffected family interactions, and this in turn affected the young person’s attitudes andbehaviour.

There were also instances, in the most difficult family situations, where the young person’sbehaviour remained unchanged after the course. Here the benefit of the course might simplybe that the mother was able to come to terms with their child’s behaviour and feel that therewas nothing more that she could have done to change things. A widowed mother reportedthat the course had enabled her to finally decide to refuse to have her very difficult sixteen-year-old son living in the house, with the result that he had to move into a hostel. Shedescribed how the course had helped her ‘to come to the decision that I needed to make…Hewas not changing. But I was changing’.

Discussion and conclusions

Group parenting programmes for the parents of children of all ages became a new compo-nent of family policy in England under the 1997–2010 Labour governments, introduced toaddress or prevent a range of problems identified as both cause and consequence of socialexclusion. As Holt (2008) points out, this focus on parenting ignored the structural factorsthat contribute to parents’ difficulties. The focus of parenting support on parenting deficits,to be remedied by formal training, made it difficult to avoid a culture of blame. As the inter-views with parents in this study demonstrate, sensitivity about being judged a ‘bad parent’was a significant barrier which mothers had to overcome in order to attend the course, par-ticularly when they were experiencing serious difficulties. In reality, the sources of difficultywere much more complex and mothers identified a range of other powerful influences onyoung people over which they had no control, including the influence of peers, of gangactivity in their neighbourhood, difficult and unsupportive relations with their child’s school,and children’s long-standing health problems for which they had been unable to get ade-quate help. Nonetheless, participants found the parenting course valuable in a variety ofways, although these were not always related to the formal objectives of the course. At thesame time, it was clear that the programme was unable to address a range of needs whichhad a significant impact on parents and young people.

Issues for the parenting course and local Parenting Strategy

Mothers and grandmothers valued the course for a number of different reasons. The informaland non-judgemental ethos promoted by the trainers was important in enabling mothers toovercome their anxieties about being judged by others. It provided important social supportand reassurance for women who were often isolated by the difficult behaviour of their ado-lescent child. Through the opportunity to reflect and discuss with other parents and with the




trainers it offered useful techniques, particularly in relation to communication, which hadhelped to improve relationships.

However, participants identified some limitations to the course and reported high levels ofunmet need. The timing of the courses excluded parents who worked full-time, and this wasa particular issue restricting men’s participation. Many women thought that eight weeks wastoo short and wanted the course to last longer and to include follow-on or ‘booster’ sessions.Even though the course promoted a non-judgemental ethos, some groups such as fathers,ethnic minorities and participants with more severe family problems were marginalised. Thetheoretical starting point of the programme assumed that problems in parent–adolescent rela-tionships originated in ‘parenting style’ and therefore took this as the central focus. Itallowed little scope for parents to identify and address the issues of concern to them, such assexual relationships among teenagers, drug and alcohol use, school motivational problems,sibling conflict, mental health issues and peer pressure. Mothers particularly wanted informa-tion and advice about promoting young people’s emotional and physical health and well-being. For those with more complex needs there was inadequate access to other serviceswhich could address the material, physical or emotional needs revealed by the course.

These points raise the difficult issue of programme fidelity when delivering a parentingcourse based on a ‘proven’ curriculum and theory base (Moran and others, 2004). The Labourgovernment placed a strong policy emphasis on ‘evidence-based practice’. This was inter-preted to mean delivering a standardised programme that focused on techniques of manag-ing child behaviour. It is difficult for such programmes to respond flexibly to the emergentneeds of course participants. At the same time, the Every Child Matters framework requiredagencies to work with a holistic view of children’s and family’s needs. The exclusive focuson improving parenting, family communication and family relationships in the course aimsand curriculum, as well as the reliance on Webster Stratton-trained facilitators, meant thatpractitioners often could not respond to other needs.

The study indicated the need to review the way the course engaged families with differentneeds. The programme worked almost exclusively with women who were mainly responsiblefor ‘parenting’ and focused on concerns about one adolescent in the family. This reflects alimited view of the significant social relationships that young people have, which appears toassume that parents — in practice, mothers — are the main social influence in their lives.Despite the course providers’ awareness of the importance of engaging fathers, they had beenunable to develop effective strategies for engaging them. The course also did not offer anyopportunity to work with young people, or to address the role of other significant adults andwider family and the city’s Parenting Strategy did not include policies to address the effectson young people and parents of structural inequalities.

Wider policy implications

The aims, level and nature of local provision were in many respects structured by nationalpolicy and legislative frameworks. We conclude this paper by reflecting on three main limi-tations of the Labour government’s policy. The first is the problem-oriented approach toinvestment in parenting support for parents of adolescents compared to the more preventa-tive and supportive approach towards provision for parents of young children. Parentingeducation for parents of adolescents was primarily targeted at families with high levels ofneed and imposed on parents of young people deemed ‘antisocial’, with a moralising and




punitive approach towards ‘failing parents’ and ‘problem families’ (Gillies, 2008; Goldsonand Jamieson, 2002). This discourse promoted a culture of blame and was based on asimplistic understanding of young people’s socialisation which is at odds with Labour’sconceptualisation of social exclusion as ‘cumulative disadvantage’ (Melhuish and Hall, 2007).A more comprehensive family support service requires a more extensive evidence base forparenting education for parents of adolescents; greater attention to the relationship betweenparenting, family and social contexts and social exclusion; provision of timely support sothat services can more consistently intervene at an early stage of problems and thereby pro-mote child, adult and family well-being; and more opportunities for dialogue between ser-vices and parents and young people about the issues that are important to them. The secondissue is the failure of the national policy framework to promote a more comprehensiveapproach to needs assessment and the limited range of provision developed by local authori-ties. The women in this study had a range of needs as parents: improvements in their ownwell-being, in their material circumstances and more adequate services to meet young peo-ple’s individual needs. The focus on ‘parenting’ obscures the complex inter-relationshipsbetween these different elements which together affect family relationships and family func-tioning. However, this brings us to the third issue, the adequacy of resources. Our evaluationindicated an inadequate level and range of support services; insufficient multi-agency coor-dination, networking and training; and a lack of routine consultation with parents, youngpeople and communities. While the group parenting programme that was the focus of thisstudy was valued by participants for the practical techniques and emotional support it pro-vided, it constituted an inadequate means of promoting the well-being of adolescents andtheir families. The economic and social policies of the coalition government elected in May2010 make it very unlikely that additional services and resources will be available to parentsand their teenage children in the near future.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the editors and two anonymous referees for their helpful commentson an earlier draft of the paper.

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*Correspondence to: Karen Clarke, Politics, School of Social Sciences, University of Manchester, Arthur Lewis Build-

ing, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, UK, Tel.: 0161 275 4770. E-mail: [email protected]

Accepted for publication 30 September 2010




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‘A Chance to Stand Back’: Parenting Programmes for Parents of Adolescents