APA's positive parenting program has expanded its visibility. The World Health Organization has given ACT its seal of approval by listing the program in its handbook, "Implementing Child Maltreatment Prevention Programmes: What Experts Say." In addition, the program has earned a spot on the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' "Compendium of Parenting Interventions," the elite collection of evidence-based childhood parenting interventions that guides Head Start.
Launched in 2001, the ACT Raising Safe Kids program is designed to be delivered in nine sessions by trained professionals who teach parents and caregivers positive parenting skills to raise children without violence and to prevent maltreatment.
ACT is offered in schools, child-care centers, mental health clinics, hospitals, churches, prisons and community centers in communities throughout 19 U.S. states and in Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, Colombia, Ecuador, Brazil, Peru, Greece, Guatemala, Japan and Taiwan. Training on how to teach the ACT intervention is offered in the United States at five regional centers located in LaGrange Park, Illinois; Lima, Ohio; Waltham, Massachusetts; Miami; and Washington, D.C.
While ACT is already offered in many Head Start centers throughout the United States, "having this status will make it much easier for us to promote our program to more centers," says ACT Director Julia M. da Silva. Expanding ACT through Head Start will likely help children two fold. Children will benefit from the skills their parents learn and from their parents being more involved in their schools.
"When a program is offered specifically for parents at an educational setting, research shows that it improves their relationship with the school, that they are more likely to participate and become even more invested," says da Silva.
Find more information on ACT.
