WHAT IS PARENT WATCH®


What Is Parent Watch
The Parent Watch Mandate
The Parent Watch Formula
Parent Watch Meetings
Parent Watch In The Home
Parent Watch In The Community

WHAT IS PARENT WATCH
Parent Watch is a support and information network for effective family management. Each Parent Watch group brings together parents and professionals within the community in a positive, skill development and problem solving process that creates 'lived' solutions for family conflicts. Parent Watch can provide parents with a persistent feeling of confidence in dealing with their children.
THE PARENT WATCH MANDATE
1. Monitor our youth and the negative influences upon them
2. Identify and implement solutions to common parenting/family problems
3. Empower parents to take action in the best interests of their children
4. Provide parents with readily accessible, free, supportive information, and to help them develop effective family management skills
THE PARENT WATCH FORMULA
1. Facilitate an open monthly meeting to help families define their 'community', to clarify family issues and identify resources to address them, and to identify Parent Watch group issues and wider community issues
2. Provide telephone support for parents in crisis including redirecting and referral of parents and children to appropriate services. This support includes liaison with referral agencies to ensure consistent support and service
3. Provide presentations and consultation to community consultation committees, parents' associations and school advisory councils on issues affecting parents and youth
4. Parent Watch is an established forum for parent support. Our regular meetings allow agencies and services to assess needs and opinions readily, and to 'field test' ideas and proposed service changes. Parent Watch fosters creative responses to community issues by linking parents and existing services in a structured, supportive problem-solving process
PARENT WATCH MEETINGS
1. Help parents assist each other to develop, direct and promote the well-being of their children
2. Establish strengths-based parent groups within the community
3. Improve the ability of parents and police to work together to reduce harm to children and adolescents by increasing parent advocacy skills and reducing barriers to service
4. Help families respond to problems on a needs-driven basis, creatively using existing formal and informal resources
5. Promote a community/neighbourhood focus on problem resolution by developing relationships between families and school administration and staff, community police officers, community consultation committees, and parent advisory committees
6. Teach and inspire, as demonstrated by the energy, commitment and productivity of parents and adolescents when given an opportunity to participate in meaningful responses to issues
PARENT WATCH IN THE HOME
1. Educate parents in understanding adolescent issues and preparing their responses
2. Increase parent support and networking in order to reduce parent isolation
3. Increase communication between parents and adolescents by strengthening parent understanding and confidence
4. Increase parent comfort in using community resources--such as police and school administration--to bring control and structure into the home
5. Provide a structure with support and strategies for important issues that parents need to bring to the attention of local agencies and government
6. Create an information network for parents as effective as the information network among adolescents
PARENT WATCH IN THE COMMUNITY
1. Provide a community-based initiative to assist parents and adolescents in managing the stress, lack of controls and peer influences that contribute to drug use.
2. Address the needs of high risk groups of adolescents or those identified as having some significant symptoms or behaviours.
3. Pair parents and professionals at a grass roots level that fosters respect and trust and innovative thinking.
4. Access treatment or controls for adolescents in crisis.
5. Unify important existing services in response to key issues, avoiding duplication and misunderstanding.
6. Maintain well-established connections to police and public health that can mobilize support for addressing key issues causing harm to children and adolescents.
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Parent Watch is a registered trademark of Lifecycle Counselling