The Healthy Parenting Program was developed to provide weekly instruction for parents in need of assistance in dealing with the complexities of raising their children from birth to adulthood.

Participation in PA Treatment & Healing’s Healthy Parenting Program will equip parents to cope effectively with the complex demands of raising an adolescent as well as managing a healthy family.  Parents will be taught proper discipline techniques; will learn more effective communication skills, and how to resolve their own negative emotional struggles in order to successfully raise their children. Our Relationship-based Cognitive Behavioral Theoretical Model instructs parents on the importance of identifying the root causes of their family conflict and subsequently teaches methods proven to be effective in breaking the cycle of dysfunction.

PA Treatment & Healing’s therapeutic methods have proven to be one of the most effective and unique forms of treatment provided for troubled youth and families.  Participation in the Healthy Parenting Program is meant to serve as an early intervention for families.  The agency’s approach is cognitive-behavioral in its theoretical structure with significant emphasis placed upon relationships with the most important people in our lives.  Our approach is strategic in that it incorporates a planned sequence of prescribed functions throughout the process.  We believe that ineffective parenting is accelerated by unresolved emotional wounding which stems from broken family relationships.  The root causes of the behavior must be addressed and reconciled within the family system if long-term success is to be expected.  The philosophy of the agency model is the basis for the Healthy Parenting Program: assisting at-risk youth and families in need by identifying and resolving the conflict and reconciling relational difficulties arising within the family.  This is accomplished by effectively teaching parents what they need to do to have healthy balanced relationships with their children. We teach parents that their role while raising their children is not to be their friend.  Parents are instructed on how to balance love and healthy discipline by incorporating structure as well as the importance of spending quality time with their children.  We teach easily understood methods, which they are instructed to implement as homework, in order to develop their relationships with their children and thereby meet their emotional needs. Our methods are designed to be more than teaching parenting skills.  We go to the heart of the problem by identifying deep emotional hurts that have not been healed.  This, in turn, stabilizes the family by allowing for the sharing of pain and by taking a journey through the Five Steps to Freedom, all in an attempt to bring peace to the home environment. 

Program Goals and Objectives

Upon completion of the program, it is expected that parents will have gained skills to better cope with the tough demands of raising their children and managing a healthy family.  The goals and objectives of the PA Treatment & Healing Healthy Parenting Program are as follows:                    

~    Restore order in the home through relationship healing.  This is achieved by addressing the root causes of family conflict through the provision of a powerful family healing process which is carefully transmitted and applied to the identified family.

~    Reduce chaos within the home by developing a positive and healthy environment.  Otherwise, increased conflict or crisis may lead to the possibility of an alternative living arrangement for the family members in distress.

~    Provide parents with the skills necessary to help reduce conflict levels and develop Relational Intimacy within the home through a strategic plan of action.

~    Promote positive parenting by providing parenting skills training which focuses on setting limits and boundaries as well as requiring parents to spend quality time developing healthy relationships with their children.

We believe that disrespect and defiance by children often stems from inappropriate parenting passed down from generation to generation.  Unresolved emotional wounding is also detected in the children in these families which often fuel their incorrigibility and anger.  The wounds sustained may have been unintentional (e.g., divorce, substance abuse) or intentional (e.g., child abuse, neglect, abandonment). Either way, if left unresolved, parents will be unable to incorporate even the most effective parenting strategies because of the impact of the underlying anger.             

While many programs focus mainly on the behavior occurring in the family, PA Treatment & Healing also specifically targets the emotions.  The agency’s approach is considered to be cognitive-behavioral in focus with significant emphasis placed upon affect.  While it is important to teach new skills, this process may be hindered by highly charged emotions of hurt and anger from the past.  We believe it is equally important to resolve the emotional wounding that has occurred between parent and child so that the youth will be accepting of the new skills parents will be attempting to utilize.  For example, if a teenager is instructed to be home by 10:00 p.m. or clean his room, or do his homework, and he has unresolved issues with this parent, the same one who is now attempting to set appropriate guidelines, the child’s negative feelings which have not been healed will override his desire to obey the parent. He will most likely refuse to comply with the instructions until the parent takes accountability for past failings, or emotional wounds which they intentionally or unintentionally inflicted upon their child.  Once the hurt has been acknowledged it can be healed and the child becomes much more open to accept the authority of the parent and follow the rules.                 

It is postulated that healthy family relationships yield healthy functioning people.  Conversely, broken relationships within the family lead to long-term interpersonal conflict and anger demonstrated in a myriad of ways.  To defuse the intense conflict occurring, the Healthy Parenting Program includes a comprehensive educational approach for resolving relational conflict through reconciliation.  The broad meta-goal of the agency model is to identify the root causes and origin of the antisocial behavior patterns in order to resolve the conflict within the family.  Through the PA Treatment & Healing Healthy Parenting Program, parents will be taught these therapeutic processes and instructed to implement them with their children week by week.  Parents will learn the importance of developing strong relationships with their children, the need to be proactive rather than reactive in this relationship, and steps necessary to repair any damage that has already occurred. They will be taught that while conflict will always occur between parents and children, the way that they handle it will make all the difference.                              

Program Overview

The PA Treatment & Healing Healthy Parenting Program is proposed as follows:                    

~    Each group can accommodate up to ten sets of parents.  The program will not commence until there are eight referrals.

~     Each set of parents will receive an initial private session with trained therapeutic staff in order to gather information, explain the expectations, and assess the family situation.

~    Each parent or set of parents will be required to attend ten weekly therapeutic sessions; each being two hours in duration.  The child(ren) will be included in two sessions.

~    The parents must attend and successfully complete all ten sessions in order to receive a PA Treatment & Healing Healthy Parenting Certificate of Completion.

The Healthy Parenting Program is currently being offered to parents who have children involved in treatment with our agency as well as to parents in need of skills and education in order to prevent further intervention.