PACES
( Parenting and Community Empowerment and Support )
A. Positive Parenting Skills Training (PPST)
Positive Parenting Training and Workshops annually provides parents and caregivers from all over South Africa with parenting information, relationship-building and behaviour management skills which equip them to relate positively, non-violently and effectively to their children.
Positive Parenting Skills Training (PPST) Courses and Workshops provide parents and caregivers with parenting information, relationship-building, and behaviour-management skills that equip them to relate to and care effectively for their children. The PPST aims to enable parents to recognise the impact of how they were parented, move away from authoritarian and punitive parenting styles, and learn a range of skills and techniques to practice positive parenting moving forward.
The full Positive Parenting Training comprises 8 sessions covering:
• Understanding your children’s behaviour
• Rethinking Violence in Parenting
• Identifying and listening to children’s feelings
• Building and understanding your child’s self-esteem
• Assertiveness and engaging children’s co-operation
• Effective Discipline
• Problem-solving
• Values
• Conducting Family Meetings
The workshops and full training are run at The Parent Centre offices and in venues across the Western Cape. Parents and caregivers get to know about the training through collaboration with a network of NPOs, CBOs, FBOs, educational institutions and government departments; word-of-mouth advertising and through The Parent Centre’s own social media platforms and marketing initiatives.
Some parents attend because they want to improve their parenting and prevent problems with their children; others come because they are already experiencing difficulties in their parent-child relationship or with their children’s behaviour and want help; some have appeared before children’s court on charges of child neglect or abuse and have been ordered to attend parenting training.
The Parent Centre’s Positive Parenting Training has formed the basis for many parenting programmes throughout South Africa (South African Child Gauge, 2013). A modified version of this training called Handson Parenting, which was co-developed by The Parent Centre and Soul City Institute, was also selected for scale up within the Global Fund’s Young Women and Girls Project in 7 Provinces.
B. Fatherhood
We use material from the Positive Parenting Skills Training with components focused on the father. Fatherhood training acknowledges the inequity and high rate of Gender-Based Violence (GBV) in South Africa. It asserts that GBV can only be addressed by offering fathers a means by which they can explore how they were fathered and how they would like to father going forward.
Focus:
Fatherhood Training Course focuses on fostering active, involved, and nurturing fathers. This six session programme covers:
• Personal development
• Identity of men and fathers
• Role of the father
• Introduction to parenting skills
• Strengthening relationships with our children
• Father as a role model and violence prevention
• Positive discipline
• Understanding children’s development and behaviour.
It encourages active, involved, and non-violent fatherhood.
Course Breakdown:
The course consists of six sessions. Sessions run for 3 ½ hours in groups of 10 to 30 fathers. The programme is run weekly during the week or for three double sessions on a Saturday. Fathers should attend all six sessions.
We can also offer a wide range of workshops at great rates for schools and communities. Please contact paces@theparentcentre.org.za for more information.
The Rationale for Fatherhood Training
There are compelling reasons why it is essential in current South Africa to provide psycho-social support and parenting training for fathers.
One vital reason is to reduce father absenteeism, which is alarmingly high in South Africa. It is estimated that approximately 50 percent of fathers do not have daily contact with their children (State of South African Fathers Report, 2018). There are multiple causes for this, a main one being that unemployed or low income fathers are ashamed about not being able to financially support their children. We need to teach fathers that they are very important in their children’s lives and that even if they cannot provide materially for their children’s needs, they can still give them fatherly love, affection and support which is essential for healthy child development. Children who experience father absenteeism or rejection are at greater risk of aggressive behaviour and becoming perpetrators of violence, including gender based violence. Being involved with their children is of benefit to fathers as well. For example, research has shown that young men who are involved with their children make more effort to protect themselves from harm and to be economically active as a result of knowing that their children depend on them (State of South African Fathers Report, 2018) ₁.
Another critical reason is to protect children and women from abuse or death. We need to train men to use non-violent ways of relating to their wives/partners and children. Too many South African children are being hurt and even killed in their homes. Recent findings from a Birth to Twenty Plus study which followed more than 2,000 children in Soweto from birth to 22 years old, showed that 50% of younger children have experienced violence in the home, most often through physical punishment by their mothers and fathers. 3 in 4 child murders occur in the home due to fatal child abuse (Professor Shanaaz Mathews, 2018). One of the long-term effects of experiencing harsh or abusive parenting in childhood is a propensity to violence in adulthood. Life history research with men who were incarcerated for killing an intimate partner has revealed that their violent behaviour had roots in childhood experiences of harsh parenting, neglect, abuse and fear (South African Child Gauge, 2017).
Ideally, we need to provide parenting support and training to fathers early on, preferably from the first 1000 days (the period that spans conception to the first 2 years of a child’s life), as men who participate in the pregnancy; birth and early years of their children’s lives often develop deep and enduring emotional attachment to their children, which protects against father absenteeism and child neglect and abuse. At The Parent Centre we also often experience in our work with fathers that many are keen to have this connection with their children, and with a bit of support and encouragement, are able to reconnect and establish positive relationships with their children. Our work with fathers has been very exciting and inspiring.
The Parent Centre’s Solution
Our core solution is an evidence-based and evidence-informed fatherhood training programme delivered face-to-face or remotely (via Whatsapp and Zoom). The training comprises six group sessions and individual follow up calls with each participating father, providing space and opportunity to fathers to:
• Speak about their childhood hurts and traumas and their parenting struggles.
• To learn about the role of the father in the family; equitable parenting; toxic masculinity; children’s needs, behaviour and development; communication and relationship-building skills and positive (and non-violent) discipline.
The training is available to biological, step, adoptive fathers and grandfathers who are primary caregivers, of all ages.
The fatherhood programme was initially started as a one-day workshop more than 10 years ago. In 2011 the training was revised and launched as a pilot study with 62 fathers living in peri-urban and rural areas of Lambert’s Bay; Strand; Worcester; Robertson and Grabouw and parts of the Southern Cape, in partnership with the Provincial Department of Social Development (Western Cape). Fathers who participated in the pilot study reported that they had become better fathers and their family relationships at home had improved. Similar programme results were found in a study conducted by Jessica Payne as part of a Social Work Masters Thesis in 2018, which can be accessed via https://etd.uwc.ac.za/handle/11394/6797.
In March 2015 the programme was recognised as a Best Practice Model at the National Department of Social Development’s Annual Conference in Pretoria. Over the years further revisions were introduced based on participant feedback and external evaluations and successful programme delivery has been made possible through collaborations with myriad NPOs, Government Departments and Networks such as the Men and Boys Network; Gender Transformation Network and Parenting in Africa Network. A train-the-the trainer programme had also been developed, to equip staff of other organisations to implement the intervention effectively.
Over the past 10 years the annual number of fathers and professionals who have been benefitted from this intervention has ranged from 64 to 496. In recent years the number of fathers reached has dropped to an average of 120 due to funding availability. Sadly, funding for evidenced-based and evidence-informed fatherhood interventions has been sparse despite the growing realisation of the important role that fathers play in children's development; healthy families and healthy society.
References
1. State of South African Fathers Report, 2018. Sonke Gender Justice. https://genderjustice.org.za/publication/state-of-south-africas-fathers-2018/
2. South African Child Gauge, 2017. http://www.ci.uct.ac.za/sites/default/files/image_tool/images/367/Child_Gauge/South_African_Child_Gauge_2017/Child_Gauge_2017_lowres.pdf
C. Counselling
Parenting-focused counselling is provided to a wide range of parents (single parents, mother/ father dyads, parents of “blended families” and “skip generation households” where the ageing grandparents are the primary caregivers of their grandchildren).
Counselling provides a safe space where parents and caregivers can discuss and think about their parenting challenges. It empowers parents to develop positive ways of dealing with them. Counselling is both a therapeutic and skills transfer opportunity that enables parents to focus on particular issues facing them in a one-on-one setting.
Parenting-focused counselling was the very first programme that the Parent Centre offered in 1983, born out of the realisation that parents, from all walks of life, sometimes experienced difficulties in their relationships with their children and/or with managing their children’s behaviour. These difficulties may be linked to the normal challenges of raising a child (e.g. a toddler’s temper tantrums or a teenager’s rebelliousness) ; may arise out of a parent’s current circumstances (e.g. poverty, unplanned parenthood, single parenthood; drug addiction) and/ or through the parent’s own experiences painful childhood experiences e.g. neglect or abuse by their parents.
But many parents may not have the support, information or skills needed to negotiate these difficulties successfully, resulting in the problems becoming entrenched or escalating; parental neglect, abuse or abandonment and poor functioning, even violence and criminal behaviour, in their children.
The Parent Centre Counselling, offered by experienced social workers and professional counsellors provides a safe space in which parents can discuss and think about their difficulties and, with guidance, develop positive ways of dealing with them. Typically counselling is short-term (6-sessions) but where an assessment indicates the need for longer-term work with parents and caregivers, this is contracted for. If child abuse or neglect is suspected, the assistance of external child protection social workers at statutory organisations such as Cape Town Child Welfare is enlisted to investigate and/or monitor the child at home.
Parents/caregivers contact the Centre for help directly via telephone, our website and social media pages. Parents/caregivers are also referred to us through child protection organisations; Children’s Courts; schools; churches; hospitals and concerned family members; friends and neighbours.
In recent years the nature of difficulties that parents present with in counselling has changed – has become multifaceted and more complex. An increasing number of divorced parents are requesting counselling to navigate the complexities and distresses of co-parenting. Many parents/ caregivers seen struggle with depression, financial difficulties, alcohol, and drug dependance, interpersonal and community violence. The behaviours seen in the children of these parents and caregivers have included: anxiety; depression; school refusal; poor academic performance; poor discipline; aggression; drug use; poor parent-child attachment (bonding).
Parents who are victims and perpetrators of GBV access our parenting counselling services for help with parenting challenges. They may come to counselling via referral from Women’s Shelters and other organizations focusing on GBV. Their children may be misbehaving as a result of the instability, conflict and violence they are witnessing with their parents and/or parental neglect and aggression. Should a parent disclose GBV during counselling, s/he will be encouraged and assisted to access GBV specialist services e.g. MOSAIC.
Some of the topics covered include:
• How do I help my child cope with our divorce?
• What do I do about the constant arguing and fighting between my children?
• My child is not motivated at school
• My teenager is rude and disrespectful
• My child is very aggressive
• My child is being bullied at school
• How do I discipline my children effectively?
• My child has low self-esteem
• Co-parenting Counselling
D. Workshops and Talks
These can include topics like (but not limited to):
• Communication between Parent and Teenager
• Factors Affecting Children’s Behaviour
• The Unconscious Goals of Misbehaviour
• Helping Children Deal with their Feelings
• Effective Discipline for Toddlers & Pre-Schoolers
• Effective Discipline for the Older Child
• Building Children’s Self-Esteem
• Encouraging and Motivating your Child’s Schoolwork
• Assertiveness: Expressing the Parents’ Needs and Feelings — getting the child’s co-operation
• Raising Boys
• Raising Girls
• Mothers and Sons, Fathers and Son
• Mothers and Daughters, Fathers and Daughters
• Understanding and Managing your Child’s Temperament: The Spirited Child
• Sibling Rivalry
• Helping Children Deal with Loss/Death/Divorce, etc.
• Talking to Children about Difficult Topics
• Your child and Television — is it good or bad?
• Sexuality and the Pre-Schooler & Young Child/Tweenie, Pre-teen & Teenager
• Typical Aggressive Behaviour – biting, hitting, etc.
• The Importance of Play
• Building Resilience in Children
• Circle of Courage
• How to talk to kids so that they will listen, and listen to kids so they will talk
• Grand–parenting
• Helping your Child cope with Bullying or Friendships
The workshops and full training are run at The Parent Centre offices and in venues across the Western Cape. Parents and caregivers get to know about the training through collaboration with a network of NPOs, CBOs, FBOs, educational institutions and government departments; word-ofmouth advertising and through The Parent Centre’s own social media platforms and marketing initiatives. Some parents attend because they want to improve their parenting and prevent problems with their children; others come because they are already experiencing difficulties in their parent-child relationship or with their children’s behaviour and want help; some have appeared before children’s court on charges of child neglect or abuse and have been ordered to attend parenting training. The Parent Centre’s Positive Parenting Training has formed the basis for many parenting programmes throughout South Africa (South African Child Gauge, 2013). A modified version of this training called Handson Parenting, which was co-developed by The Parent Centre and Soul City Institute, was also selected for scale up within the Global Fund’s Young Women and Girls Project in 7 Provinces.
Parent-Infant Home Visiting Programme (Thula Sana)
- Parent Infant Home Visiting Programme
The 9 Parent-Infant Attachment Counsellors who conduct the home visits also facilitate
Pregnancy and Early Parenting Clinic Talks annually with pregnant women waiting for their antenatal check-ups at local maternity and obstetric units in Khayelitsha, Gugulethu, Phillipi, Nyanga, Hanover Park, Mitchell’s Plain and Imizamo Yethu.
The clinic talks also provide essential opportunity for vulnerable pregnant women to get to know about and request the ongoing support that is offered through the 20-session home visiting programme.
The Parent Infant Home Visiting Programme (Thula Sana Adapted) provides information and world-class support to pregnant women before and after birth to encourage positive parent and infant attachment. We want to establish a supportive relationship with first-time mothers during the critical time before and after birth to help them establish a positive attachment to their babies.
What it involves:
• 5 ante-natal and 15 post-natal workshops for pregnant women who are first-time mothers
• Early parenting talks at Maternity and Obstetric Units (MOU)
• Loss and Grief sessions
Clients can call and make an appointment at our Wynberg office. We also offer support via Zoom/Video Call.
First 1000 Days
The period from conception until a child’s 2nd birthday offers a unique window of opportunity to shape healthier and more prosperous futures. Learning, playing, and scheduled immunisations will assist in the child’s developmental journey. The period from pregnancy to two years is a crucial time for the development of healthy and happy children. The developmental journey of a child’s life is an exciting time. With excitement comes several key milestones they need to achieve to ensure the right start to a bright future. Babies are absorbing, learn, and react to the world around them through their senses (touch, hear, see, smell, taste).
Counselling helps parents understand the difficulties they experience in raising their infant or toddler, to explore alternative ways of managing problems, and to promote knowledge and awareness of infant mental health.
The service is for any parent, family member, or caregiver with an infant or toddler who:
• Finds their baby unusually quiet or uninterested in them
• Feels their baby is too fussy or difficult to comfort
• Is concerned about how active their child is
• Feels burdened by the demands of parenthood
• Has a baby with developmental problems that place special emotional stress on the parents or caregivers
• Experiences ongoing depression or anxiety after the birth of the infant
Zero to 5 Counselling is a specialised counselling service for parents of children aged 0 -5 years and who are experiencing difficulty with feeding; sleeping; separation and prolonged temper tantrums. These challenges increase the risk of children being and neglected and abused.
Teen Parenting Programme
Teenage parents and caregivers face additional challenges such as health problems; a higher likelihood of school drop-out; increased risk of depression; high risk of repeated pregnancies and weak relationships with their own parents and/or other adults in the home. Children of teenage parents and caregivers are at higher risk for low birth weight, poor nutrition, neglect, abuse and abandonment.
The Teen Parenting Programme was established in 2000 in response to requests for support for teenage parents and caregivers from concerned educators at high schools in several townships in Cape Town. The Parent Centre annually delivers the programme to more than 350 teenagers between the ages of 15 to 21 who are raising their own children, siblings and/or other children in vulnerable communities of Khayelitsha, Nyanga, Gugulethu and Phillipi. The demand for the programme by the teenage parents and caregivers themselves as well as continual requests for the programme by educators, is indicative of the need for the programme in these communities.
Our Teen Parenting Programme provides teenage parents and caregivers with world-class support as well as parenting and life skills. The teen pregnancy rate in South Africa remains unacceptably high and we do not condone teenage pregnancy. However, teenagers with parenting responsibilities need support to enable them to cope with these, together with their normal developmental changes and challenges and academic responsibilities.
The programme is offered as an extracurricular programme in school, for learners in grade 8 to 11 and at community venues for those who dropped out of school. The programme comprises 23 sessions of life skills and parenting skills training, typically weekly over six months and covers the following issues:
Positive Parenting Component
The Positive Parenting component includes sessions on:
• Being a teen, being a parent
• Understanding children’s behaviour
• Listening and responding to children’s feelings
• Building self-esteem
• Positive discipline
• Problem-solving
Life Skills Component
The Life Skills component – particularly pertinent for developing responsibility in teenage parents and caregivers – deals with specific challenges such as:
• Assertiveness
• Managing money
• Love relationships
• HIV/AIDS
• Loss and grief
The Teen Parenting Programme also raises awareness that GBV is unacceptable behaviour; builds the self-esteem of young women and teaches them assertiveness; and teaches young men how to manage and express their needs and emotions in non-violent ways.
When we become aware that teenage participants are experiencing GBV or witnessing it in their homes, we refer for them for counselling, for possible onward referral to an organization specializing in GBV eg MOSAIC or Ilitha Labantu.
New Initiatives/Programmes
a) Co-Parenting Training
Our Co-parenting workshop explores the complexities of co-parenting by focusing on understanding how to share raising children in two different homes.
This training will help parents to understand the nuts and bolts of co-parenting. We try to focus on the best interest of the child, which is to have a connection with both parents, irrespective of whether the parents get along or not.
Co-parenting means sharing parenting responsibilities between two parental figures which is often an ex-spouse/partner. It may also extend to mother/grandmother pair or between parent and extended family members. Co-parents may live together or separately.
Clients of TPC who have been through a parenting, fatherhood or co-parenting workshop, feel better equipped to steer through the choppy uncertain waters of co-parenting.
b) Encouraging Fatherhood Involvement
While the role of mothers is quite aptly lauded, one of the unsung heroes in a child’s life is their father, especially when it comes to raising young boys.
Studies show that children who have a supportive father that shows both emotional and cognitive assistance with learning have stronger peer relationships and also perform better in school.
The Parent Centre’s dedicated Fatherhood Training Programme assists fathers in building strong connections with their children, to better serve them in life.
“From our experience, when you we ask any group involved in our training programmes about the role of their mothers in their lives, there is usually ample positive response.
“In contrast, many are ambivalent or negative when it comes to talking about their fathers and the role they have played,” says PACES (Parent and Community Empowerment and Support) manager, Jonathan Hoffenberg.
There are generations of normative expectations for young boys, which still negatively impacts how they father their own sons today.
Supportive Fathers are more nurturing, more playful
A recent report by Equimundo, titled Step by Step, Navigating Boyhood in SubSuharan Africa, describes the landscape of challenges and expectations that boys face as they grow older, especially around being strong and self-reliant.
The report highlights that boys are being left behind, they aren’t doing as well at school as their female classmates, and they aren’t socialised in the same way. They are raised to not be open about their emotions or to display expression.
One of the ways supportive fathers can avoid this is to be more nurturing, more playful, and to show their sons a full range of emotions.
A lot of men (who are themselves repressed) get to access those feelings and emotions that they are not normally used to expressing when they play with their children, while at the same time modelling good behaviour for their children.
“Hands-on fatherhood creates a shift in culture. It breaks cycles of men not knowing how to be a father because they did not have a father figure in their own life. Involved fathers serve as role models who are able to positively influence men and boys in need of guidance and inspiration.
“Furthermore, involved fathers have the power to reduce the rate of gender-based-violence, because it can undo a lot of the unwanted rhetoric around gender equality,” says Hoffenberg.
Benefits of supportive father involvement at different stages of a child’s life
Fathers and babies
• Fathers and mothers encourage their babies to explore the world, however fathers have a different style to mothers as their play is more physical and involves verbal stimulation. This type or style of play fosters a healthy development of the baby’s brain and has a lasting effect on their social emotional and intellectual development
Fathers and small children
• Fathers who play with their toddlers provide a safe but challenging environment so that they learn how to interact with the world and with others. Through ‘rough and tumble play’ fathers create obstacles for their children and demand respect for limits and boundaries. Fathers also encourage toddlers to explore their own strength, their abilities to try new things
Overall benefits of father involvement for children
• Fathers’ positive presence contributes to children’s cognitive development, intellectual functioning, and school achievement
• Children growing up with fathers who are positively involved are less likely to experience depression, fear, and self-doubt
• When fathers are positively involved, boys are less likely to search for alternative sources of masculine identification and validation like gangs
• Children are more secure in their relationships with partners of the opposite sex
• The presence of a father in the household is associated with positive outcomes such as children’s improved access to resources in the community, increased protection, and higher levels of household expenditure
c) Fatherhood for working Fathers
This is a 3-session training programme, with each session lasting 6 hours.
The Fatherhood Training programme focuses on the role of the father in the family, building a relationship with the mother of his children and being actively involved in raising his children. It encourages active, involved, and non-violent Fatherhood.
It gives men a safe space to talk about being a man and father, the challenges of fatherhood and ways to strengthen his connection with his children.
d) Positive Parenting Skills Training for working Parents
The Positive Parenting Skills Training For Working Parents is aimed at parents and caregivers of children of various ages. The training focuses on understanding children’s behaviour, and effective and positive ways of responding to difficult parenting situations they experience with their children.
This is usually an 8-session training programme, with each session lasting 3 ½ hours.
To accommodate working parents, we will offer this training for 4 full days, running fortnightly on Saturdays.
e) Responsive Parenting Pilot Programme (RPPP)
RPPP is a pilot programme that allows the Positive Parenting Skills Training (PPST) Facilitators the opportunity to not only deliver training to parents, but reach beyond the training to ensure that the parents and caregivers psycho-social needs are met.
Many parents/caregivers attending PPST come from extreme poverty and violence. The facilitators and general manager (Trained Social Worker) are able to identify the greater needs of the parents/caregivers whilst training and refer them to receive the services they need to ensure the holistic needs of the family are met and ensure the overall wellbeing of the child.
Support includes:
• Referrals to individual counselling
• Referrals to Trauma support
• Opportunities to attend pilot workshops including
o Co-Parenting
o Birth Stories
o Encouraging Fatherhood Involvement
o Art Therapy
o Rethinking Violence In Parenting
• Practical Support
o Children/Babies clothing, blankets, school needs
o Food Vouchers and Food Parcels
o Transport allowance to attend training
o Family Packs – to encourage Family meetings and bounding
o Baby vouchers
o Additional food at training to ensure parents can focus on the information they are receiving
o Child Care to ensure parents can attend the training.
