Featured Program Vignette: The CAP Council's Incredible Years Parent Education Program

Here are families engaged in parent education sessions from the Imperial County Child Abuse Prevention Council’s Incredible Years® Parent Education Project.  Project Facilitator, Ana Romero is seen here explaining to parents about a child’s social emotional development.

The Imperial County Child Abuse Prevention (CAP) Council Incredible Years® Parent Education Program is evidence-based and works to offer intensive parent education and support. The Council began to offer parenting education classes using the Incredible Years® curriculum during the the 2015-2016 fiscal year following a First 5 Imperial mini-grant award and recommendation for the Council to adopt a parent education curriculum that was age appropriate and available in both English and Spanish.  Prior to this curriculum, the Project had been using the Systematic Training for Effective Parenting (STEP) parent education curriculum. 

The purpose of the Incredible Years® Project is to support families by focusing on strengthening parenting competencies and building a culture of parent involvement through a series of interconnected, evidence-based activities for parents and children, and that can further include teachers or caregivers in the process. The short-term goal of the parent education program is to reduce conduct problems (such as having high rates of aggression, defiance, oppositional, and impulsive behaviors) in children by increasing parental competence and strengthening families.  The CAP Council offers the Incredible Years® parent education program on a schedule that operates through weekly two-hour sessions for 12 to 14 weeks.  It is an interactive program which seeks to actively involve parents and generally begins with participants watching a video in order to kick-off a parenting discussion.  From the discussion, ideas are shared and strategies evolve that are then reinforced through role play.  Skills targeted for younger children include play, praise, using rewards effectively, limit setting and discipline.  The parent education class is facilitated by the Project Coordinator and the Project Facilitator(s).  Parent education classes are available in English and Spanish, and may be limited to specific age groups, such as: newborns, infant and toddlers,  preschool-age or pre-teenage children.   The CAP Council is currently using the Preschool Basic & the School Age Basic curriculums of Incredible Years.  The Preschool Basic parenting curriculum strengthens parent-child interactions and attachment, reducing harsh discipline and fostering parents’ ability to promote children’s social, emotional, and language development while the School Age Basic curriculum does the same but for older children.

The CAP Council collaborates with other agencies in Imperial County that target the same populations such as the Sure Helpline, Neighborhood House of Calexico, Cal-WORKS, Family Resource Centers (county-wide), Center for Family Solutions, Imperial Valley Housing Authority, Imperial County Early Care & Education Planning Council, Imperial County Office of Education, Imperial County Public Health Department, Child Abuse Response Team, Imperial County Behavioral Health, and the Imperial County Department of Social Services .  Currently, the Project is offering parenting classes in Calexico, El Centro, and Holtville.  For parents that do not count with someone to take care of their child(ren), free childcare is available.  For more information click here for a fact sheet about the Incredible Years® and please feel free to contact the CAP Council’s Project Director, Yvette Garcia at (760) 353-8300.

For a listing of other Proposition 10 funded Projects featured by the Commission click here.