Why parenting support is so important

Improved access to evidence-based parenting support has never been more important than in this COVID-19 affected age of uncertainty. Children and their families around the world are being adversely affected by global events, including climate distress, displacement due to war, and natural disasters. Children’s mental health, learning, development, and wellbeing is at greater risk due to unprecedented disruptions in family lives. These disruptions have increased parental mental health problems, family violence and poverty, and worsened children’s health and risk of being maltreated.

The challenge

Most children grow up in households where their parents have not accessed high-quality, evidence-based, and culturally informed parenting support appropriate to their needs. This is in large part due to a lack of recognition of the crucial importance of parenting and parenting support in influencing human growth and development. In many countries there has been insufficient focus on the critical importance of evidence-based parenting support in policy development. Parenting support is rarely a policy priority and there continues to be inadequate funding for research into developing and testing new parenting supports, or adapting existing programs and strategies known to work. Few countries have the professional services and resources needed to deliver parenting support initiatives effectively and at scale.

What’s needed

To advance the field of evidence-based parenting support globally, greater collaboration and harmonisation is needed between program developers, evaluators, policy makers, implementation organisations, end-users, and consumers (parents and children themselves).

Systemic barriers that make collective action more difficult must be reduced, and capacity building to foster ongoing innovation, effective knowledge transfer, and policy advocacy is needed. Available high quality parenting research has significantly less influence on government policies, funding priorities, and services than it should. To combat this, intervention researchers and program developers must transform the way they undertake research and innovation, both within and between organisations, so that their work becomes more collaborative and solution-focused. This requires new ways of partnering and sharing knowledge in a digital world, to streamline a research and development pipeline that can lead to evidence-based solutions capable of being scaled and sustained.

The I-CEPS 2023 aims to provide a global opportunity for enhancing knowledge transfer in the field of parenting. It will act as a powerful and transformational case exemplar of solution-focused, collaborative engagement of key stakeholders resulting in improved research, policy impact and effective deployment of programs that work. The event will show that effective knowledge sharing and collaboration can lead to significant improvements in the lives of children, families, and their communities.

Plan of action

The Congress will be instrumental in promoting meaningful change in parenting support. It involves two parts: 1) the Congress itself and 2) the establishment of post-Congress action circles that will take key learnings to promote local policy change and social impact. The ultimate outcome of the Congress will be the extent to which it leads to greater commitment and  meaningful local actions that could influence policy priorities and improved access to programs and models of delivery that work in different regions of the world.

Anticipated benefits of the congress

The I-CEPS will strive to promote and support direct action from attendees throughout and beyond the event. In particular, the Congress aims to:

• Promote and support efforts to improve the quality and impact of parenting and family intervention research across the globe
• Enhance networking and collaboration opportunities between individuals and organisations
• Coordinate advocacy to meaningfully advance policy, practice, and research to support parents and families
• Provide advanced learning opportunities for doctoral and post-doctoral students specialising in parenting and family intervention research
• Provide training opportunities in effective dissemination and scaling of evidence-based parenting programs
• Facilitate post-Congress regional action circles to advance evidence-based parenting support