Component 3
Working with parents and carers
The family is central to children’s mental health. Researchers have identified a range of family related risk and protective factors that influence children’s mental health. By working together with parents and carers, providing information and support, and helping families to develop support networks, early childhood services can make a significant difference to the mental health of children.
Parents, carers and early childhood services working together
When parents, carers and early childhood services work well together to promote social and emotional development, it is more likely to yield substantial and sustained improvements for children. Parents and carers will be much more likely to access available parenting support, information and education if they have had the opportunity to build respectful and collaborative relationships with staff at the service. Additionally, families can have a positive impact on their children’s mental health and wellbeing by working closely with staff and providing opportunities for children to practice and reinforce the social and emotional skills they are learning in the early childhood service.
Early childhood services supporting families
Preschools and long day centres, through their regular contact with families, provide an ideal access point for families to learn about parenting, child development and children’s mental health. They also provide an ideal place where families can meet each other and develop support networks. They can also help parents and carers to access parenting support provided by external agencies. Parenting support and education is crucial to the success of mental health programs for children.
Component 3 focuses on:
- Developing collaborative partnerships with families
- Connecting families with each other
- Supporting parenting (for example, by providing parents and carers access to high quality parenting information in the community)
Have a look at the Component 3 Information for Families pack
