The Nurturing Programme is a 10-week parenting programme that improves the emotional health of both adults and children and strengthens family relationships.
The data analysed here was collected by Cardiff Flying Start from 325 parents with children under the age of four who attended the Nurturing Programme in Cardiff between 2011 and 2015.
Using a reliable measure called the Tool to Measure Parenting Self-Efficacy (TOPSE), parents were asked about 8 dimensions of parenting to understand their levels of self-efficacy (or self-belief) in their ability to parent. The dimensions include: emotion and affection, play and enjoyment, empathy and understanding, control, discipline and boundary setting, pressures of parenting, self-acceptance, and learning and knowledge.
The findings show that parents greatly increased in parenting self-efficacy after attending the Nurturing Programme with positive and significant changes across all 8 dimensions. The biggest changes identified were in the dimension of discipline and boundaries, with other large changes observed in the dimensions of empathy and understanding, control, and play and enjoyment.
If you would like to find out more information about the Parent Group Leader training for the Nurturing Programme, click here.