Parents Plus – The charity that builds capacity of services to improve outcomes for families

As we enter the final quarter of 2023 we wanted to take a moment to properly introduce our charity to all our new partners.

Parents Plus was founded by Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist Professor Carol Fitzpatrick and Dr John Sharry in 1995. Since then the charity has grown significantly and now offers 8 professional training programmes, as well as ongoing supervision and evaluation monitoring services, for those who work in Community, Health, Education, and Disability services.

Our team of experts work closely with services to build their capacity and skills to deliver and evaluate our proven parenting and mental health interventions, tailored to the needs of local communities, as well as the support of regional and national roll-outs, to ensure effective community-wide delivery.

In the last 10 years alone, we have supported over 1,000 international organisations, to create sustainable change in their service delivery, strengthening over 100,000 families.

For over 28 years, we have committed to researching outcomes and developing effective programmes for professionals supporting families. Our programmes have proven benefits for families, including those dealing with disadvantages, disability, and mental health problems, as well as the normal ups and downs of family life. We collaborate with families to ensure that each of our eight flagship programmes meets their goals and is focused on empowering children and parents to achieve their potential. 

All profits from sales of programme training and supervision are re-invested in developing new evidence-based programmes to respond to the evolving needs of families and to sponsor facilitator training and support of services with limited budgets, who work with high-need families.

We reinvest all profits made in three key areas of impact

(1) Free supervision: Each trained facilitator receives two free supervision sessions in year one post-training.

(2) Sponsoring facilitator training and supporting services who work with high-need families and who have limited funding. 

(3) Developing further evidence-based programmes to ensure that services can respond effectively to the evolving needs of families. 

If you would like to train in one of our programmes or learn more about how we can support you to improve outcomes for children, adolescents and families, please contact our Impact Lead, Viki Byrne, Vicki@parentsplus.ie 

Our programmes have proven benefits for families, including those dealing with disadvantages, disability, and mental health problems, as well as the normal ups and downs of family life.

These programmes are designed for families with child-focused problems, such as behavioural difficulties, disruptive behaviour disorders, and emotional disorders in young people with and without developmental disabilities. Our programmes have been developed for families of preschoolers, preadolescent children, and teenagers, as well as for separated or divorced families. Studies involving well over 1,000 families have shown that our programs have a significant impact on child behaviour problems, goal attainment, and parental satisfaction and stress.

Our team of experts work closely with services across Community, Mental Health, Disability and Education, to build their capacity and skills to deliver and evaluate our proven interventions, tailored to the needs of local communities. If you would like to discuss booking onsite training and supervision of your team (15 or more), and/or tailored support in the roll-out and evaluation of the programmes to ensure effective community-wide delivery, please contact our Impact Lead Vicki Byrne at vicki@parentsplus.ie

To learn more about us visit the news section of our website here!