Lerner, Esther P.

Marquis, Janet

Santelli, Betsy

Sergeant, Julie

Turnbull, Ann P.

KU ScholarWorks

Topic: Parent to ParentBOTTOM  LINETIPS FOR PARENTSSantelli, B., Turnbull, A., Sergeant, J., Marquis, J.G., & Lerner, E.P. (1996).  Parent to Parent programs:  Par-ent preferences for supports.  Infants and Young Children, 9(1), 53-62.Regardless of the age of the child or the severity of the child’s disability, parents re-ported on surveys that they preferred the following supports:Emotional support—having someone to listen and understandInformation support—having information about the disability, finding and gettingservices, living with and caring for the child, and accessing community resourcesOther program supports—having group meetings for either emotional or educa-tional support.Contact local Parent to Parent programs to receive emotional and informationalsupport from a veteran parent.Communicate clearly to staff the specific needs of your family.Share your experiences and knowledge as a veteran parent of a child with a dis-ability.  Your support is valuable.Do not assume families “fit” into a specific category for support needs.  Taketime to find out the family-specific needs in matching them with a veteran familyand providing support.Recognize how critically important it is to the majority of parents to have emo-tional support in the form of having someone to listen and understand and tohave informational support in the form of finding out relevant information aboutdisability issues.TIPS FOR SERVICEPROVIDERSKEY FINDINGSMETHODRegardless of the age of their child with a disability, two-thirds of the parentsranked having someone to listen and understand as a preferred emotional sup-port.Two emotional supports, help in feeling less alone and problem-solving support,were preferred by more parents of older children (six or older) than parents ofyounger children.Over 46% of parents, regardless of the age of their child, preferred the followinginformational supports:  receiving information about the disability, living with andcaring for the child, finding and getting the best possible help for the family mem-ber with a disability, and information about community resources and servicesfor the family.Approximately two-thirds of all parents, regardless of severity of the disability,ranked someone to listen and understand as important.Receiving information about the disability was important to  the greatest numberof parents whose children have mild or moderate disabilities.The greatest percentage of parents of children with severe disabilities ranked in-formation about living with and caring for the child, respite care, and financial as-sistance as important.All parents ranked group meetings as important, whereas, parents of childrenwith severe disabilities ranked a telephone warm-line as important.The greatest difference in how parents ranked supports were between parents ofyoung children with mild disabilities and parents of young children with severedisabilities.  Dealing with stress and problem-solving support was ranked as im-portant by almost twice as many parents of young children with severe disabili-ties as the parents of children with mild disabilities.A written survey completed by 240 parents participating in Parent to Parent pro-grams.These parents represented a random sample of parents from 190 Parent to Par-ent programs nationally.RELATEDPUBLICATIONSBailey, D.B., Blasco, P.M., & Simmeonsson, R.J. (1992).  Needs expressed by moth-ers and fathers of young children with disabilities.  American Journal of Men-tal Retardation, 97, 1-10.Santelli, B., Turnbull, A., Marquis, J., & Lerner, E. (1995).  Parent to Parent programs:A unique form of mutual support.  Infants and Young Children, 8(2), 48-57.Ainbinder, J., Blanchard, L., Singer, G.H.S., Sullivan, M., Powers, L., Marquis, J., &Santelli, B. (1998).  How parents help one another:  A qualitative study of Par-ent to Parent self-help.  Journal of Pediatric Psychology, 23, 99-109.Santelli, B., Poyadue, F., & Young, J. (2001).  The Parent to Parent handbook:Connecting families of children with special needs.  Baltimore, MD:Brookes.Singer, G.H.S., Marquis, J., Powers, L., Blanchard, L., DiVenere, N., Santelli, B., &Sharp, M. (1999).  A multi-site evaluation of Parent to Parent programs forparents of children with disabilities.  Journal of Early Intervention, 22(3),217-229.This research was conducted in collaboration with the Beach Center on Disability.It was funded by the Rehabilitation Research and Training Center on Families ofChildren with Disabilities of the National Institute on Disability Rehabilitation andResearch (H133B30070) and private endowments.  For more information, contactthe Beach Center on Disability at 1200 Sunnyside Avenue, 3111 Haworth Hall, TheUniversity of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66045-7534. Phone: 785-864-7600. Email:Beachcenter@ku.edu. Website: www.beachcenter.org.Permission granted to reproduce and distribute this research brief.Please credit the Beach Center on Disability.

Parent to Parent Programs: Parent Preferences for Supports

https://kuscholarworks.ku.edu/bitstream/handle/1808/6071/PP2Santellietal1996.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y

Parent to Parent Programs: Parent Preferences for Supports

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

KU ScholarWorks