Supporting Parents through Parent Education. Building Community Systems for Young Children.

California's Proposition 10, the "Children and Families Act," has targeted three general areas for improvement in support of families and young children: improved family functioning, improved child development, and improved child health. Proposition 10 views parents as critical to the development of young children. Noting that parent education services are particularly related to the Proposition's objectives, this report provides state and local Proposition 10 Commissions with a brief overview of the field of parent education, with a focus on approaches that support parents with children from birth to age 5. The report also addresses the challenge of expanding parent education and integrating it with existing support programs. The report's introduction distinguishes between parent support and parent education, defining the latter as provision of specific knowledge and child-rearing skills to parents and other caregivers with the objective of enhancing a child's development, whereas parent support tends to focus on enhancing social networks and access to resources. The report then reviews research on the effects of parent education. Existing parent education systems/programs are then evaluated, with the observation that programs tend to be fragmented, with different organizations offering different types of program and little to no coordination among providers. This section also highlights eight parenting programs in California as well as a parent curriculum. The report next examines integrating disparate education and support programs into systems, and discusses integrating and coordinating funding streams for cooperating programs. The report concludes with recommendations for enhancing provision of parent education. Three appendices include a list of related informational resources, a matrix of the "universe" of parent education, and a matrix of stand-alone parent education programs for parents of children from birth to age 5. (Contains 59 references.) (HTH)