Still Going Strong
SummaryText
From the Executive Summary
"The Community Mothers Programme (CMP) is a support programme for first-time - and some second-time - parents of children aged 0 to 24 months who live in mainly disadvantaged areas. This includes, lone parents, teenage parents, Travellers (see Chapter three), asylum-seekers and refugees. Following pilot phases, the CMP was formally launched in the former Eastern Health Board, Republic of Ireland, in 1988. Today it is delivered to nearly two thousand parents each year.
The Programme aims to support and aid the development of parenting skills, thereby enhancing parents' confidence and self-esteem. It is delivered by non-professional volunteer mothers known as Community Mothers, who are trained and supported by Family Development Nurses. The Community Mothers visit parents in their own homes once a month and use a specially designed child development programme, which focuses on health care, nutritional improvement and overall development. The Programme model is one of parent enablement and empowerment.
This report describes the context of the CMP, its evolution from a pilot project in 1980, and the evaluations and research that have been carried out on it.
In 1990, the programme was evaluated by a randomised controlled trial when programme children were one year old (Johnson, Howell and Molloy, 1993) and was found to have significant beneficial effects for both mothers and children. Children in the intervention group scored better in terms of immunisation, cognitive stimulation and nutrition, and their mothers scored better in terms of nutrition and self-esteem than those in the control group. At that time the programme was aimed only at first-time parents during the first 12 months of the child's life; parents received a maximum of 12 visits, usually one per month, each lasting approximately one hour.
In 1997-1998 a seven-year follow-up study (Johnson et al., 2000) was done to find out whether the benefits of the Programme had been sustained over the intervening period, by which time the children were eight years of age.
Approximately one-third of the mothers who had been in the original intervention and control groups were located and asked for details on the child's health, the diet of both mother and child, the development of the child and the mother's parenting skills and feelings of self-esteem.
In a nutshell, the findings were very positive: intervention mothers were more likely to check their child's homework every night and to disagree with the statement "Children should be smacked for persistently bad behaviour", mothers in the intervention group demonstrated higher self-esteem and greater enthusiasm for motherhood, intervention children were less likely to have an accident (although more likely to have been hospitalised for an illness), and subsequent children of the intervention mothers were more likely to have completed their primary immunisation programme.
The conclusion is that the CMP has a beneficial impact on parenting skills and maternal self-esteem that is sustained over time and which is carried through to subsequent children. In order to enhance these effects even further, and as a direct result of continuing and regular evaluation, the Programme has been extended to the first 24 months of the child's life."
"The Community Mothers Programme (CMP) is a support programme for first-time - and some second-time - parents of children aged 0 to 24 months who live in mainly disadvantaged areas. This includes, lone parents, teenage parents, Travellers (see Chapter three), asylum-seekers and refugees. Following pilot phases, the CMP was formally launched in the former Eastern Health Board, Republic of Ireland, in 1988. Today it is delivered to nearly two thousand parents each year.
The Programme aims to support and aid the development of parenting skills, thereby enhancing parents' confidence and self-esteem. It is delivered by non-professional volunteer mothers known as Community Mothers, who are trained and supported by Family Development Nurses. The Community Mothers visit parents in their own homes once a month and use a specially designed child development programme, which focuses on health care, nutritional improvement and overall development. The Programme model is one of parent enablement and empowerment.
This report describes the context of the CMP, its evolution from a pilot project in 1980, and the evaluations and research that have been carried out on it.
In 1990, the programme was evaluated by a randomised controlled trial when programme children were one year old (Johnson, Howell and Molloy, 1993) and was found to have significant beneficial effects for both mothers and children. Children in the intervention group scored better in terms of immunisation, cognitive stimulation and nutrition, and their mothers scored better in terms of nutrition and self-esteem than those in the control group. At that time the programme was aimed only at first-time parents during the first 12 months of the child's life; parents received a maximum of 12 visits, usually one per month, each lasting approximately one hour.
In 1997-1998 a seven-year follow-up study (Johnson et al., 2000) was done to find out whether the benefits of the Programme had been sustained over the intervening period, by which time the children were eight years of age.
Approximately one-third of the mothers who had been in the original intervention and control groups were located and asked for details on the child's health, the diet of both mother and child, the development of the child and the mother's parenting skills and feelings of self-esteem.
In a nutshell, the findings were very positive: intervention mothers were more likely to check their child's homework every night and to disagree with the statement "Children should be smacked for persistently bad behaviour", mothers in the intervention group demonstrated higher self-esteem and greater enthusiasm for motherhood, intervention children were less likely to have an accident (although more likely to have been hospitalised for an illness), and subsequent children of the intervention mothers were more likely to have completed their primary immunisation programme.
The conclusion is that the CMP has a beneficial impact on parenting skills and maternal self-esteem that is sustained over time and which is carried through to subsequent children. In order to enhance these effects even further, and as a direct result of continuing and regular evaluation, the Programme has been extended to the first 24 months of the child's life."
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