Conditions for Developing the National Program for Parent Education in Romania

Cojocaru, D., Cojocaru, S., Ciuchi, O.M., 2011, Conditions for Developing the National Program for Parent Education in Romania. Revista de Cercetare si Interventie Sociala, 34, pp. 144-158. (Full article – download free).

Abstract

The initiative of developing a nation-wide strategy for parenting education in Romania belongs to the Holt Romania organisation, one of the national providers of such programmes, as well as to UNICEF, which in the past ten years has constantly supported and encouraged the establishment of pilot programmes in this domain. Moreover, the national authorities, directly or through intermediate structures, have repeatedly declared their interest in developing a national strategy for applying parenting education as a form of support and consolidation of the services designed for the prevention of child abuse, neglect and exploitation, of school abandonment etc., and for the promotion of children’s rights. In these circumstances, our study analyses the main four national parenting education  programmes carried out in Romania by various non-governmental organisations and their features in terms of contents/curriculum, form of organisation, methods used, and categories of participants. Our research highlights the need to build a national integrated and coherent system of parental education for parents in Romania. This requires the development of professional standards, developing a methodology for training, certification and parental supervision of educators and public financial resources for developing long-term parenting education

Keywords: parenting education; professionalisation of parenting; parental support; participation; training; vulnerable families.

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