The Parents Plus programmes are evidence–based mental health and parenting programmes for families that can be delivered by professionals under licence from the Parents Plus Charity under the following strict conditions.

Facilitator training

Parents Plus offers specific facilitator training and supervision to professionals who wish to deliver the Programmes. Attending the training for each programme is compulsory and gives the facilitator the license to use the programme materials.

Who can attend training?

The Parents Plus Facilitator trainings are open to qualified education, mental health and community professionals who work with families. The Parents Plus programmes are successfully delivered with impressive outcomes in a variety or Primary Care, School, Health, Disability and Mental Health settings

In special circumstances it is possible for people without the above professional qualifications to attend the training such as parents who have completed a Parents Plus course who are supported by a professional agency to be a co-facilitator. Please contact us if you wish to attend training in these circumstances.

Supervision

Once you train in a Parents Plus programme you are then licensed to co-facilitate that programme under supervision in your agency. As a minimum you are expected to attend your normal line management supervision in your agency. Parents Plus also provides external supervision to support your practice and this is a first step to be becoming an Accredited Facilitator. For more information on supervision and accreditation see our Resources Section. This will also be covered in detail during the Parents Plus Training.

Co-Facilitation

Prior to being accredited, you should always facilitate your Parents Plus group with another facilitator who has trained in that specific Parents Plus programme. This is to ensure that you receive ‘co-supervision’ from your co-facilitator which is the basis of the Parents Plus Quality Protocol. If this is not possible, as a second option you can deliver the programme with a facilitator trained in another Parents Plus programme. As a minimum standard, you can co-facilitate the group with a professional not yet trained in the Parents Plus programmes once there is a plan for them to be trained in the future. On rare occasions, some facilitators gain permission to deliver a group alone prior to being accredited. In these situations you need to make special arrangements for weekly supervision within your agency and you must agree this with Parents Plus in advance.

Delivering the Parents Plus programme in private practice

The Parents Plus programmes have been primarily designed for delivery in public health, educational and charity settings, where the facilitator belongs to a professional team and is supervised and insured through their agency.

If a professional wants to deliver a Parents Plus programme privately, it is compulsory to have achieved Parents Plus Accreditation for that specific programme.

In these instances they must also be registered and accredited within their original professional body and acquire independent professional and liability insurance. There is no specific insurance for a Parents Plus facilitator (as this is a short training), so facilitators need to seek insurance as part of their core professional training (e.g. as a social worker/psychologist etc).

Facilitators running groups privately should advertise their Parents Plus Accreditation only in combination with their original professional qualification. e.g. ‘Mary Jones, Social Worker and Accredited Parents Plus Facilitator’.

Compliance with agencies policies

In running the Parents Plus Programmes, facilitators are expected to comply with all their agency’s and professional accrediting body’s policies and procedures. This means you must follow your agency’s child protection, consent and data protection policies as well as operate within the requirement of your professional body’s ethics and code of conduct policies. Supervision provided by Parents Plus should be in addition to the your agency’s line management and supervision arrangements and/or the supervision expectations of your professional accrediting body.

Correct use of the Parents Plus name

Occasionally Parents Plus is mistakenly called Parenting Plus. At all times, take care to use the correct terms ‘Parents Plus Charity’ and ‘Parents Plus programmes’. If for any reason a Parents Plus programme is being run under a different name it is essential that ‘A Parents Plus course’ is clearly stated in any publicity, advertising or literature about the programme – this allows parents to know the background of the courses and to check the evidence base if they so wish.

Again, make sure to use the correct names of the programmes. For example the ‘Parents Plus Parenting When Separated’ programme (and not ‘Our Parenting When Separated’ programme), the ‘Parents Plus Early Years Programme’ (not ‘Our Early Years Programme’), and a ‘Parents Plus Course’ (and not ‘A Parenting Plus course’).

We also recommend that the names of facilitators and their professions are included in all advertising literature.

Delivering adapted versions of the Parents Plus programmes

If you are running a parenting or other psycho-educational programme and want to use a significant part of the Parents Plus programmes, you should seek special permission from Parents Plus to do this. You should acknowledge with participants that you are not running the full Parents Plus programmes, but an adapted version. In instances where professionals use ideas and sections of the Parents Plus programmes in service delivery or within professional training, for copyright reasons you should always acknowledge the Parents Plus sections used and refer people to the Parents Plus website www.parentsplus.ie for more information.