Services Promote Positive Parenting

Knowing that strong, supportive services can strengthen families by promoting positive parenting skills and healthy parent-child relationships, The Duke Endowment awarded $1.6 million over four years to expand Parents Anonymous in six rural South Carolina counties.

Insights

When staff at the Endowment reviewed this project after it ended, four key insights emerged:

• The financial cost of implementing local support groups was minimal – but in rural, resource-starved areas, even low-cost interventions can be hard to sustain. The true test will be seeing how many groups are still thriving four or five years after the initiative ends.
• Having Parents Anonymous South Carolina coordinate the project as a statewide partner was more efficient than trying to fund six different counties.
• Without a large population center, the mutual support group format might be challenging for a rural area. Local communities need to be creative in finding places to meet. In Colleton County, for example, one group met at a beauty salon.
• Of the seven proposals considered at the beginning of this initiative, The Duke Endowment funded Parents Anonymous because evidence showed its effectiveness in addressing child abuse and neglect, a fact that was confirmed again by a national evaluation in 2007. In addition, the annual cost of sustaining a parent support group can be as low as $2,500 to $5,000, an important factor for counties facing significant economic challenges.

Impact

• Between January 2005 and December 2009, more than 900 parents in six S.C. counties participated in Parents Anonymous programs. During the same time, nearly 3,000 parent group meetings were held.
• In the six counties, 35 mutual support groups were formed and 13 child/youth programs were established.

Contact Us

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Associate Director of Child Care
704.969.2117