Leadership in Parental Involvement (LIPI) for Child and Adolescent Well-Being

Course Description:

This 15-hour certificate training course is designed for last-mile professionals such as teachers, principals, social workers, counsellors, community leaders, coaching class instructors, and frontline workers such as Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs), Anganwadi workers, Self-Help Group (SHG) members from government departments and Community Based Organizations (CBOs) and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) who interact on regular basis with children, parents, families, and communities. These last-mile professionals and frontline workers can use this training to further their goals of enhancing adolescent well-being and family development through effective parental involvement, engagement, and communication.

This course will help participants explore and understand the importance of parental involvement and engagement for the healthy development of their children. Participants will gain knowledge about the impact of parental involvement on the physical, nutritional, mental, emotional, and academic well-being of children. They will also explore and understand the importance of a safe and secure environment for the child and help parents guide children through a safe virtual and cyber world. Participants will learn strategies for communication, engaging and involving parents and leadership principles, explore and unleash their leadership potential and learn various skills that are critical for the 21st century.

Course Objectives:

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

  1. Understand the significance of parental involvement and engagement in adolescent well-being.
  2. Develop leadership and communication skills to promote parental skills and create collaborative environments between institutions such as schools, health care and families.
  3. Implement effective strategies for parental involvement and engagement.
  4. Assess and support the well-being of children and adolescents.
  5. Design and manage programs that enhance parental involvement and adolescent well-being.

Course Structure:

The course is divided into 10 sessions.

Each session is broken into two parts:

Part 1: Consists 45 to 60 minutes of lectures, interactive activities, case studies, evidence, and assessments on different aspects of parental involvement, engagement, and communication.

Part 2:Consists of activities and videos for skills building lasting 30 minutes.

The complete duration of each session is 90 minutes.

Session 1: Role of Family inAdolescent Development

The session is an introduction to adolescence, changes taking place during adolescence, the challenges and difficulties arising from it, and the role that parents can play in easing the transition to adulthood. The role of the participants is to facilitate this support for adolescents. To achieve this objective, it introduces the concept of facilitation and the requirements of a good facilitator.

Learning Objectives:

  1. Understand the nature of changes occurring during adolescent development.
  2. Assess the role of family for healthy adolescent development.
  3. Develop skills for being a good facilitator.

Topics:

  1. Understanding Adolescent Development and Well-Being
    1. Role and Impact of Family / Parent Involvement in Adolescent Development

Skills: 1. What is facilitation? How to become a good facilitator?

Session 2: Parental Involvement

The session aims to build awareness of the importance of parent involvement in adolescent development. It outlines the role of the participants as Leaders in Parent Involvement (LIPI) and lays out the roadmap for addressing barriers and achieving the vision of parent involvement for adolescent development.

Learning Objectives:

  1. Understand the meaning and importance of parental involvement for adolescent development.
  2. Outline their role as Leaders in Parent Involvement.
  3. Demonstrate critical thinking for problem-solving to facilitate parent involvement in adolescent development.

Topics:

  • Whatis Parental Involvement
    • Barriers to Parental Involvement
    •  Strategies to address and reduce barriers to parent involvement
    •  Introduction to an approach to becoming a LIPI (Leader in Parent Involvement) –
  • understanding the problem and potential solutions
  • working on yourself and your skills,
  • working with parents and families – identifying strengths and taking a strengths-based approach to working with parents and families,
  • working with last-mile institutions
  • working with the community

Skills: 1. Problem-solving (Critical Thinking)

Session 3: Strategies for Parental Involvement

The session informsabout tools and techniques to identify problems, design strategies, and implement strategies for parental involvement. It identifies the efficacy of digital tools and online learning platforms and encourages learners to leverage these innovations in their strategies. 

Learning Objectives:

  1. Understand the importance of parental involvement in the child’s education.
  2. Develop skills to extract and utilize contextual information to implement appropriate strategies for parental involvement.
  3. Identify and use digital platforms to enhance parental involvement.

Topics:

3.1 What are some of the strategies for involving and engaging parents, from different socio-economic groups

3.2 Assessing and understanding parents daily lives and context, their needs and desires

3.3 Simple research techniques such as conducting group sessions, interviews, online polls

3.4 Home-School Communication Techniques

3.3 Parent Workshops and Training

3.6 Developing Volunteer Programs

3.7 Interactive Workshops

3.8 Digital methods of reaching and connecting with parents

Skills: 1. Digital literacy

2. Methods to Create, Engage and Motivate Groups

Session4: Working on yourself: Leadership Principles

The session introduces different leadership styles we encounter and guides participants in building leadership skills. It identifies and underlines the importance of necessary leadership skills forLIPI to encourage them to work on themselves to improve their effectiveness and deliver impact.

Learning Objectives:

  1. Understand characteristics and importance of a good and effective leader.
  2. Identify skills of leadership and sustaining leadership through critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, and communication they must develop as Leaders in Parental Involvement.

Topics:

4.1 Leadership Styles and Theories

4.2 Characteristics of Effective Leaders

4.4 Leadership and School Culture (Used as an example for all participants)

4.4 Interactive Leadership Exercises

Skill: 1.Leadership skills

          2. 4 Cs of the 21st Century:

  1. Critical thinking
  2. Creativity
  3. Collaboration
  4. Communication

Session 5: Building Trust and Communication with Parents

The session aims to inform participants about the importance of building good relationships through effective communication and trust-based relations with parents. It provides some helpful techniques to improve active listening and trust and rapport with parents.

Learning Objectives:

  1. Understand the steps involved in building good relationships with parents.
  2. Apply skills of effective communication and trust building for parental involvement.

Topics:

5.1 Role of Trust in strengthening a relationship

5.2 Effective Communication Skills

5.3 Active Listening Techniques

5.4 Building Strong Relationships with Parents

Skill: 1. Trust and Rapport-building and

          2. Active Listening

Session6: Creating an Environment that is Supportive of Parents

The session underlines the importance of context-informed actions for parental involvement to address the needs of a diverse set of parents and shape empathy and collaboration to build appreciation for diversity and inclusion.

Learning Objectives:

  1. Understand the role of parents’ lives and backgrounds in shaping parenting and barriers to involvement.
  2. Identify inclusive practices that overcome barriers for a diverse group of parents.
  3. Develop skills necessary for fostering support, inclusion, and well-being.

Topics:

6.1 Understanding the perspectives and problems of parents and families

6.2 Social/Cultural Competence

6.3 Inclusive Practices

6.4 School Policies that Promote Well-Being

Skill: 1. Collaboration

          2. Empathy

          3. Communication

Session 7: Helping Parents Provide Learning and Academic Support at Home

The session aims to appraise the importance and techniques for developing a positive learning environment at home. This includes effective communication with children and persuasion by evolving as good role models for learning.

Learning Objectives:

  1. Understand the importance of nature and quality of parental involvement.
  2. Learn homework policies that effectively engage parents with the schoolwork.
  3. Use technology and resources to help parents learn and support their child’s learning.
  4. Learn how parents can support positive behaviors for learning through communication and role modeling.

Topics:

7.1 Effective Homework Strategies

7.2 Providing Academic Resources and Support for Parents

7.3 Helping Families and Parents Use Technology to Support Learning

7.4 Being Tech and Cyber Safe

Skills: 1. Persuasion techniques

            2. Parent-child communication

Session 8: Supporting Adolescent Mental, Emotional Health and Well-being and Common BehavioralProblems

Adolescence is a transitional phase, and children might experience confusion and conflict affecting their mental well-being and, at times, resulting in behavioral problems like substance use and addictive behaviors. The session equips the learner to effectively identify and address these issues to create a safe, secure, and supportive environment for adolescent development.

Learning Objectives:

  1. Identify mental health and well-being and behavioral problems common in adolescents.
  2. Understand the role of parents in providing a positive and supportive environment for adolescent well-being.
  3. Ascertain components of assessment for child and parent-child relationships.

Topics:

8.1 Identifying Mental health, Emotional, and BehavioralIssues

8.2 Providing Resources and Support for Parents to help emotional regulation of adolescent

8.3 What to address at home, and when to refer to Mental Health Professionals

8.4 Promotion of cyber-safety in adolescents

Skills: 1. Assessment of Child

            2. Assessment of Parent-Child Relationships

            3. Parent-Child Communication

Session9: Overcoming Challenges in Parental Involvement

The session helps recall and collate learnings from previous sessions to build strategies for overcoming barriers to parental involvement. It informs the learner of inclusive and collaborative practices to overcome the barriers to parental involvement.

Learning Objectives:

  1. Identify and appraise the pervasiveness of barriers to parental involvement.
  2. Understand necessary practices for overcoming barriers to parental involvement for parents and themselves.
  3. Develop skills to ideate and build innovative solutions.

Topics:

9.1 Identifying and Addressing Challenges in parent involvement using strategies outlined in previous sessions

9.2 Ideating and thinking of potential solutions to these challenges

9.3 Conflict Resolution Strategies

9.4 Case Studies on Overcoming Challenges

Skills: 4 Cs of the 21st Century:

  • Critical thinking
  • Creativity
  • Collaboration
  • Communication

Session10: Planning, Implementing, andEvaluating Parental Involvement Programs

The session helps incorporate good practices for planning, implementation, and evaluation in parental involvement programs by informing the learner about relevant methods, designs, and techniques.

Learning Objectives:

  1. Ascertain the importance of planning and evaluating a program.
  2. Identify techniques and good practices for planning, monitoring, and evaluation.
  3. Develop basic outlines for planning, monitoring, and evaluation.

Topics:

10.1 Methods for Planning and Evaluating Programs

10.2 What is monitoring and evaluation?

10.3 Data Collection and Analysis Techniques

10.4 Reporting and Providing Feedback

10.5 Case Studies of Parental Involvement Programs

Skills:1. Planning

            2. Critical thinking

            3. Evaluation

Course Materials:

  • Case studies and real-world examples.
  • YouTube videos, e-books, and open-access readings on leadership, parental involvement, various skills, and adolescent well-being.
  • Online resources and tools for parental engagement, leadership, and skills development.
  • A special website or repository with all the materials and readings for the course

Assessment and Certification:

  • Participation in discussions and activities.
  • Completion of Assessments.
  • Final project presentation.
  • Upon successful completion, participants will receive a Certificate in Leadership in Parental Involvement.

Instructor:

Experienced professional with expertise in community work, public health, development studies, managing stakeholders from multiple sectors, parental involvement, leadership, and adolescent well-being.

Target Audience:

Last-mile professionals in human services such as education, health, social work, nutrition such as teachers, educators, school administrators, parent representatives of PTA (parent-teacher association) and school-management committees (SMCs), counsellors, coaching class instructors, frontline workers in health and nutrition, physical activity and sports or gym instructors, nurses and doctors serving communities directly, community leaders, and anyone interested in enhancing parental involvement to support the well-being of adolescents.