Supporting Parents
Parenting is probably the most important and rewarding role you will undertake in your life. Yet parenting is far from easy, having many ups and downs, and posing great challenges and demands. At Parents Plus, we hold parents in high esteem and recognise you as the experts of your family. The focus of the eight Parents Plus Programmes is about helping parents find solutions to problems and create more satisfying ways of relating to their children.
About Parents Plus
Parents Plus is an Irish charity that develops evidence-based, practical, parenting courses and mental health programmes. Our mission is to improve the well-being of children and families, by training and empowering professionals to deliver our programmes in their services.
There are eight different Parents Plus Programmes for parents and young people, which are usually run as 6-12 week courses. The parenting courses are largely run free of charge or at a minimal cost to those attending.
Please note that we do not run courses directly. Instead, our programmes are delivered by trained facilitators through local services.
“The Parents Plus group absolutely helped us as parents and our son David. I didn’t think that anybody could help us, because David was violent towards everybody. Ever since I did the Parents Plus sessions I’m a lot happier, David is a lot calmer, his sister is happier, his mother is happier. Our home is a lot calmer and he’s actually fun to be around now.”Owen
Accessing Parents Plus Programmes in Your Community
The Parents Plus programmes are run by the professionals we train, in many different settings, such as Family Resource Centres, Primary Care Teams, Disability Teams, Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services, CAMHS and Primary and Secondary Schools.
In addition, many county organisations coordinate parenting courses and services, such as County Child Care Committees and
Children and young peoples services committees.
Regional organisations offering Parents Plus Courses on a regular basis include SPECS Bray Family Support Project, Clarecare in Co Clare, Love Parenting in Co Limerick, Parenting Monaghan, Donegal Parenting Hub
If you would like to attend a Parents Plus programme in your area, please contact your local services for children and families to find out if there is a course coming up.
Parents Plus Online Courses
See the list below of Parents Plus Programmes available via Parentline.
Please check-in with ADHD Ireland www.adhdireland.ie for the Parents Plus ADHD programme and Family Carers Ireland for the Parents Plus Special Needs Programmes.
Also, check with your local Parent Hub, Family Resource Centre, Youth and other family support services in your area many of whom run Parents Plus programmes in person and online.
| Online Parenting Courses – Parents Plus | Dates and Book |
|---|---|
| The Early Years Programme is for parents of young children aged 1 to 6 years. | All autumn courses are now fully booked. Please check back in Dec/Jan for further info on the next set of programmes. |
| The Children’s Programme is for parents of children aged 6 to 11 years. | All autumn courses are now fully booked. Please check back in Dec/Jan for further info on the next set of programmes. |
| The Adolescents Programme is for parents of adolescents and teenagers aged 11 to 16 years. | All autumn courses are now fully booked. Please check back in Dec/Jan for further info on the next set of programmes. |
| The Parenting when Separated Programme is for parents who are preparing for, going through or have gone through a separation or divorce. | All autumn courses are now fully booked. Please check back in Dec/Jan for further info on the next set of programmes. |
| The ADHD Programme is for parents of children with ADHD aged 6 to 12 | Visit adhdireland.ie |
| The Special Needs Programme is designed to support parents/guardians who are raising a teenager or young adult who has an intellectual disability and associated conditions which may include autism, physical disability and other additional support needs. | Visit Family Carers Ireland |
Parenting – Tips and Support Services
Visit our Parenting Tips and Resources page for resources from the Parents Plus Programmes, and:
- Information on Parenting Support Services
- Children’s Support Services
- Relationship Counselling Services
- Mediation Services
- Mental Health Services, as well as
- Parenting articles, featured in The Irish Times, from Professor John Sharry of Parents Plus
“I think the Parents Plus course was fantastic. I was really lost before I went to it. But each day coming out of the course, I felt more confident. You gave me the tools to do things right. Everything you taught us to do really worked. Thank you.”Louise
Feedback
If you are a parent or young person who has attended a Parents Plus programme, we would very much welcome your feedback. We would like to hear about your experience of attending our programmes, what went well and what could have been improved.
To provide feedback, please email nqzva%40cneragfcyhf.vr. You can leave your feedback anonymously or you can include your contact details if you would like to hear back from us. All feedback will be treated in the strictest of confidence.
Parent Testimonials
“I’m mum to one fabulous, fun, energetic and exhausting girl who’s turning five next week. We’re far from perfect but try our best everyday. Some days are wonderful – others not so much. I took the leap and signed up to a Parents Plus parenting course. The support, encouragement and skills shared and learned were so much more than I’d expected. For any parents out there who are struggling or want to do better, I’d encourage you to make the time to find a local resource that are there to help. Invest in your relationship with your child – you’ll both benefit.”
“Well it was an experience for me to understand my son Anthony more than I used to before I went to the Parents Plus course as in not to think that he was just being bold or being a bully, but more to understand the pressures that he is under and what it is like to be out there today with friends and peer pressure and everything else”
“I think that when we started on the Parents Plus course I thought maybe it would be, ‘this is what you’re doing wrong, that’s what you’re doing wrong,’ instead of that I found that it emphasised the positive aspects. We all felt that we were good parents that were doing a lot of things right.”
“I found it very hard to come along to the Parents Plus class because I thought nobody was going to have a child like my child. It was absolutely great being able to say, well my child has this bad behaviour, and he wasn’t the only one with bad behaviour. Other children had done exactly same thing. As parents we benefited greatly from the course, we got a lot of emotions out – laughed, cried, and joked. It was time out.”
“I found doing the Parents Plus course really very helpful, I must say I went in thinking ‘Everybody will think I’m here that I have a problem with parenting’ but I soon realised that the people coming were the people that were already good parents and that wanted to do the best for their children, who wanted to do a very important job even better. It really did help my life considerably and helped the way that we related to each other as a family.”
“Really positive – I was very unsure about going to the Parents Plus group, I thought people were going to criticize me, but the course gave me the tools I needed in a friendly way…I just need to remember to press the pause button!”
“One of the key things that the Parents Plus course has given me is a sense of hope and understanding that there are other people in similar situations. I think that is very important for a parent because you do feel very lonely when you have to deal with a child with these difficulties, which other children and other parents don’t seem to experience. So just that idea of meeting people who have gone through the same experiences and are dealing with the same problems as you gives you an awful lot of strength and a lot of confidence to go on with your life and keep building that relationship with your child.”
“Overall the Parents Plus course was really helpful and I’m so glad I did it, and, if my experience or any of my feelings can help anybody else, then it’s well worth it. There was a group of us, mothers and fathers, everyone of us had one or two children but we all had the common problem that we couldn’t manage our children. Today to be able to manage my children and feel that I am a good mother is worth everything to me and I think that the children have reaped the benefit of it too.”