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Prepare Tomorrow’s Parents maintains a growing clearinghouse
of instructional materials. Only a portion is listed below. Additional
information may be available on request. Please contact Prepare
Tomorrow’s Parents regarding any materials or contacts you
may need or have available to share.
The Baby
Think It Over® Program is designed to help teenagers understand
the full-time commitment and responsibility of parenting. The educational
program is made up of three parts: 1) a comprehensive parenting
education curriculum, 2) a computerized infant simulator, and 3)
specialized software for reading and printing a detailed report
of students’ parenting simulations.
The curriculum
contains information on infant care and development in the womb
through the first three years of life. It includes sections on how
to use infant safety equipment, and on infant health including Sudden
Infant Death and Shaken Baby Syndromes as well as common illnesses
like earaches and colic. It also covers parenthood lifestyle changes
parenthood such as demands on money and time as well as frequent
interruptions.
RealCare®
Baby is a computerized “Baby.” Programmed to cry at random
intervals day and night with schedules based on those of real infants,
it must be cared for by the teen “parent.” It was designed
as a more realistic substitute for the “egg babies” and
“flour sack babies” that teachers use. Baby, like a real
infant, deprives teenagers of sleep, disrupts their social lives,
and attracts disapproving looks in public. RealCare® Baby II
requires feeding using a bottle or breastfeeding device, changing
diapers, rocking, and burping. Students and teachers receive detailed
electronic feedback on the student’s care of “Baby,”
including head support failure, rough handling, wrong position and
Shaken Baby Syndrome.
Realityworks
also has created the Pregnancy ProfileTM Vest that can help students
experience the reality of the third trimester of pregnancy. The
program’s curriculum includes 10 lesson plans, a “Timeline
of Pregnancy” diagram and worksheets to help students reflect
on pregnancy and its life-altering consequences. It includes a bladder
that when filled weighs approximately 25 pounds. A suspended weight
inside replicates mild fetal kicking, and a rib constrictor belt
helps promote shallow breathing.
In addition, Realityworks offers a Drug-Affected Demonstrator and
a Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) Manikin to demonstrate the hazards
of drug or alcohol use while pregnant. The company also introduced
a learning module that includes curriculum and activities and assignments.
The Gamble™ Learning Module deals with the effects of using
alcohol or drugs while pregnant.
Realityworks,
Inc.
2709 Mondovi Road
Eau Claire, Wisconsin 54701
1-800-830-1416 (phone)
715-830-2050 (Fax)
information@realityworks.com
www.realityworks.com
California
Department of Education's Home Economics, Careers and Technology
Department offers materials and provides training for three
curricula that include parenting education. A one volume middle
school curriculum, Parenting Education, was designed specifically
to meet the state's statutory parenting education requirements.
The Middle Grade Home Economics Curriculum Guide is a three
year comprehensive lifeskills program which includes a large section
on Understanding and Caring for Children. These resources include
lesson plans and activities that also develop academic skills in
traditional subject areas. A high school program, expected to be
updated soon, is also available.
Janice DeBenedetti,
Manager
Home Economics, Careers and Technology
California Department of Education
721 Capitol Mall, 4th Floor
Sacramento, California 95814
916-653-0359 (phone)
916-657-5460 (fax)
jdebened@cde.ca.gov
The
Caring Project helps students become more caring, their
first step to later becoming nurturing parents, by developing their
abilities to know, feel and act in another person's interests. It
provides students with caring experiences by surrounding them with
adults who model caring in the classroom and who integrate issues
of caring into their studies. The project utilizes Learning
How to Care: Education for Parenting, a field
tested curriculum focused on monthly parent/infant visits. Training
and consultation are provided by Philadelphia-based curriculum author
Dr. Harriet Heath and Chicago-based practitioner Dr. Dana McDermott
. Dr. McDermott's documentation of the project's implementation
and evaluation, Learning
How To Care: A Paradigm Shift in Home, School and Community,
is available online. She offers other written materials including
a position paper and bibliography for self-starters. Her new book,
Developing
Caring Relationships Among Parents, Children, Schools, and Communities
released in 2007 by Sage Publications, describes the caring process
in more detail.
Dr. Harriet
Heath
The Caring Project
223 Buck Lane
Haverford, Pennsylvania 19041-1106
610-649-7037 (phone)
610-649-7037 (fax/call first)
Harriet_Heath@hotmail.com
Dr. Dana McDermott
The Caring Project
6441 North Wayne
Chicago, Illinois 60626
773-973-7744(phone)
773-973-7744 (fax)
mdmcderm2@depaul.edu
Child Development,
Parenting, and Parent Development is offered by the New York
City Public Schools. This comprehensive high school curriculum designed
for use both as a full semester course and in flexible adaptations
using component parts. The program features lesson plans, activities,
and readings for thirty-three topics that cover child development,
healthy child-rearing skills, motivations for having children, stresses
of parenthood, and applications to current family life. It emphasizes
how parents and their roles change along with the developmental
stages of their children. It also stresses the need for teachers
to positively model the curriculum's conviction that children are
entitled to be treated with dignity, respect, and understanding.
Contact co-author Lou Howort.
Child Development,
Parenting, and Parent Development
c/o Lou Howort
449 Rugby Road
Brooklyn, NY 11226
718-693-6194 (phone)
LouH2o@aol.com (the "o"
in H2o is the letter, NOT a "zero")
Dads Make
a Difference™ is a collaborative youth development program
founded in 1993 by four Minnesota agencies to promote the positive
involvement of fathers and to educate youth about responsible parenting.
Dads Make a Difference became an independent 501c3 nonprofit
in June 2006 after being hosted program by several organizations
for 13 years. Dads Make a Difference affirms, strengthens, and celebrates
the role of parents, especially fathers. The program simultaneously
helps young people to become successful adults by teaching them
critical thinking and life skills based on significant research
findings regarding the consequences of too-early sexual activity
and too-early parenting on teens, their children, and their families.
The original
Dads Make a Difference program is a four-lesson, activity-based
curriculum taught by trained high school teens, male and female,
to middle school-age youth in schools and other settings. The curriculum
helps youth to examine risky behavior, explore the legal issues
of fatherhood, discover how involved fathers make a difference in
the well-being of children, and learn the importance of making responsible
decisions about when to have a childFrom October 1994 through June
2007, Dads Make a Difference trained 2,691 Minnesota teens from
162 schools/agencies, who have taught an estimated 62,000 middle
school age youth. 205 teens from eight other states have also been
trained. In 1998, a second curriculum was added to reach older youth,
The R Factor: Building Resiliency in Young Adults. Teacher-taught,
the curriculum engages 16 to 20 year olds in discussions of relationships
and life planning. Students investigate risk and protective factors,
family case studies, father absence, and gender socialization, challenging
them to plan for a healthy future as a partner and parent. Both
curricula have been purchased for use in a variety of settings.
Jan Hayne, Executive
Director
Dads Make a Difference™
161 St. Anthony Ave. Suite 840
Saint Paul, MN 55103
651-222-1622 (phone)
651-222-7532 (fax)
jan@dadsmakeadifference.org
www.dadsmakeadifference.org
Educating
Communities for Parenting is a private, non-profit organization
that has, for thirty years, taught children, youth, families and
communities about healthy parent/child relationships and practices.
These include the ability to think critically, solve problems non-violently,
and care more deeply about themselves and each other. The foundation
for all ECP programs is a researched-based curriculum originally
developed in 1979 and continually updated to reflect new research
findings, evaluation feedback, and to meet the needs of specific
student/client populations.
ECP provides
a wide variety of programs for non-parenting and parenting youth
including individual workshops, 10 session series, and year-long
school-based courses, primarily: Baby Watch – A baby and parent/caregiver
are “adopted” by a class for a year and the classroom
becomes an interactive learning lab as students observe the parent-child
relationship, ask questions, and predict changes in the baby’s
development; Empowerment Zone – designed to help young people
ages 5-19 understand the need for self-care and self-sufficiency,
increase personal responsibility and healthy behaviors and understand
the impact of negative behavior on families and the community; Power
to Parent - Classes on child development, nurturing techniques,
positive methods of discipline, stress and anger management, health
and safety issues, communications, life skills, and self-esteem
to enable students to understand the importance of education for
themselves and their children.
Educating
Children for Parenting®
The Belmont Bldg, Suite 701, 211 North 13th Street
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19107
215-496-9780 (phone)
215-496-9752 (fax)
info@ecparenting.org
www.ecparenting.org
Educating
Successful Parents (ESP) informs and prepares teens for their
future role as parents before they conceive a child. Youth are guided
to realize the importance of life planning and the steps necessary
to achieve their desire for a healthy family along with other future
goals. The health-based curriculum offers primary prevention by
addressing common threats to the wellbeing of children and families:
teenage pregnancy, prenatal substance exposure, child abuse, and
absent fathers. Course materials describe real-life challenges,
and equip students with techniques and tools for healthy parenting.
All cultures, faiths, and socioeconomic backgrounds are respected.
ESP offers onsite
instructors, as well as adaptable, nationally used materials for
purchase by schools and youth programs serving youth age 13 to 19.
“The Top 10 Things to Know about Parenting” is a set of
PowerPoint slides able to support 2-10 hours of classroom instruction.
The PowerPoint slides reference current health information, statistics,
trends, and research findings. The “My Life-Plan for Parenting”
student workbook can be used with the ESP PowerPoint presentation,
as a stand-alone tool in class, or as a homework project.
Orange County,
California based instructors and available to travel. The program
has garnered high interest from UCLA Center for Adolescent Health
Promotion, the USC School of Social Work, and the RAND Corporation.
Randi Rubenstein,
MSPH, Executive Director
Educating Successful Parents
www.eduparents.org
rrubenstein@eduparents.org
949-646-6016 (phone)
Learning How to Care:
Education for Parenting is a curriculum of three units, each
covering one year of work. Written originally for Grades 4-6, it
has been easily and successfully adapted for K-3 and 7-8. Students
learn how to care by planning for and having monthly parent/infant
visits, in which they observe and talk with parents about how they
nurture. Parenting is viewed as an intense form of caring about
the well being of another. The curriculum also includes other ways
to integrate the teaching of caring, such as using a caring perspective
when exploring an ecological issue, preparing a tutoring experience,
or discussing an historical event such as the removal of Native
Americans from their lands. A curriculum for high school students
is presently in the testing stage and available for piloting.
Dr. Harriet
Heath
The Caring Project
223 Buck Lane
Haverford, Pennsylvania 19041-1106
610-649-7037 (phone)
610-649-7037 (fax/call first)
Harriet_Heath@hotmail.com
Parenting
and Paternity Awareness (p.a.p.a.)
p.a.p.a.
is an innovative educational curriculum designed for secondary school
students and young adults that deals with "rights, responsibilities,
and realities of parenting." Key themes in the curriculum focus
on the importance of father involvement, the value of paternity
establishment, the legal realities of child support, the financial
and emotional challenges of single parenting, the benefits of both
parents being involved in a child's life, healthy relationship skills,
and relationship violence prevention.
The p.a.p.a.
curriculum began in 1988 with informal school presentations by the
Office of the Texas Attorney General’s Child Support Outreach
staff. In 1995, a standardized curriculum guide was distributed
to all Texas secondary schools. An expanded version was published
and distributed in June 2003. Currently, the Office of the Attorney
General of Texas is offering the 2008 edition of the 14-session
curriculum and training at no charge to Texas teachers, school counselors,
school nurses, teen parent program staff, and parent educators in
community-based programs.
For more information
about the p.a.p.a. curriculum, visit the p.a.p.a. pages on the Texas
Attorney General’s website: www.oag.state.tx.us/cs/ofi/papa.
From there, you will be able to view clips from the p.a.p.a.
video, review session outlines, and find p.a.p.a. curriculum training
opportunities in your area.
Rebecca Turnbow
p.a.p.a. Program Manager, Office of Family Initiatives
Child Support Division, Office of the Attorney General
PO Box 12017, Mail Code 039
Austin, Texas 78711-2017
512-460-6400 (phone)
512-460-6040 (fax)
papa@oag.state.tx.us
Parents
Under Construction™:
Building Healthy Relationships Today and Strong Families Tomorrow
is a Pre-K, K-3, 4-6, and 7-12 curriculum offered by ChildBuilders.
Created in collaboration with the Houston Independent School District
in 1991, Parents Under Construction™ is designed to teach children
today the parenting skills they will need in the future, making
the critical connection between parenting practices and a child's
mental health. Trained facilitators use group discussion, role play,
interactive activities, and videos to teach students and their parents
about healthy child development, effective communication skills,
non-violent conflict resolution, and positive discipline techniques.
This award-winning, research-based curriculum is available in English
and Spanish and parent/child participation activities are included
in each lesson.
Parents Under Construction™ has been evaluated in 17 independent
research studies and proven highly effective in teaching students
child development and parenting skills, as well as positively impacting
children's attitudes regarding the use of nurturing discipline techniques,
regardless of age, race, gender, or socioeconomic status. Additional
findings include: 1) teachers participating in program training
show significant gains in child development knowledge, nurturing
attitudes, and positive behavior management skills; 2) students
report greater empathic capacity after participating in the program;
3) teachers implementing the program note improved student behavior;
and 4) parents participating in parent/child program activities
overwhelmingly approve of the program. A five-year follow-up study
of past Parents Under Construction program recipients revealed that
many of the students retained program knowledge and positive attitudes
and beliefs about parenting practices, and none of the students
(now adolescents) reported having children of their own. These findings
suggest that the program may have a significant impact on reducing
teen pregnancy and increasing the likelihood of future generations
of mentally healthy children and parents.
The Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL),
a nationally recognized authority on social and emotional learning,
has approved Parents Under Construction™ as an effective, evidence-based
social-emotional learning program. Parents Under Construction™
has also received six awards, including a national Promising Practices
Citation from the Character Education Partnership, Best of Texas
Award (Corporate Fund for Children), Award for Program Excellence
(Prevent Child Abuse Texas), Best Practices in Parent Education
(Center for Parent Education - Texas) Primary Prevention Award (Mental
Health Association of Houston and Harris County) and Leadership
in Action Award (Leadership Houston).
Lessons including parenting styles, myths, and realities; child
development; positive discipline; self-esteem; mental health and
emotional abuse are easily integrated into existing subjects. Methods
of teaching include discussion, videos, role play, writing and demonstrations.
The program includes the curriculum, experiential initial and in-service
training offering continuing education credits, and personalized
consultation. These are available in Houston and around the country.
To date, the program has reached over 80,000 children throughout
the U.S., the Virgin Islands, and Latvia.
Janet Pozmantier,
Director
Parents
Under Construction
Childbuilders
3800 Buffalo Speedway, Suite 310
Houston, Texas 77098
713-400-1155 (phone) 713-400-1158 (Janet)
713-400-1156 (fax)
jpozm@aol.com
jpozm@aol.com
www.childbuilders.org
Roots of
Empathy™ is an innovative program that helps educate children
in kindergarten through eighth grade for their future role as parents.
The program revolves round the monthly visit to a classroom of a
baby under a year old and his or her parent(s). With the guidance
of a Roots of Empathy instructor, the students, kindergarten through
eighth grade, monitor the needs, growth and development of the baby.
By observing the relationship of the parent(s) and baby they begin
to understand empathy. By describing the feelings they see occurring
between the parent(s) and child, they develop emotional literacy.
By watching the infant pass the physical milestones of a baby’s
first year - grasping, crawling, standing, vocalizing, etc. - the
students learn how human beings develop and grow. Teachers report
that Roots of Empathy has a profound effect in their classes: students
are less aggressive, more cooperative, and the incidence of bullying
goes down. Formal evaluation of the program is now underway.
In school year
2005-06, the program is reaching 39,575 children in 1,583 classrooms
in 9 Canadian provinces. The program continues to expand throughout
Canada. In addition, there are pilot projects in the United States,
Japan, Australia, and the United Kingdom.
Mary Gordon,
Founder-Director
Roots of Empathy
250 Ferrand Drive, Suite 800
Toronto,
Ontario M3C 3G8
416-944-3001
(phone)
416-944-9295(fax)
mail@rootsofempathy.org
www.rootsofempathy.org
Teens &
Toddlers is an innovative, practical one-semester high school
curriculum offered by Children: Our Ultimate Investment to prevent
teenage pregnancy and promote mental health. The curriculum’s
two key elements are: regular one-to-one contact between each adolescent
and a toddler, with whom they establish a relationship within a
safe nursery environment; and highly interactive, experiential classroom
time focusing on child development, parenting skills, communication,
conflict resolution and relationships.
Created by Laura
Huxley, founder of Children: Our Ultimate Investment, Teens &
Toddlers programs have been running intermittently since 1978. Since
1998, the project has claimed a high success rate in preventing
conceptions by 15-18 year old girls and boys in inner city Los Angeles.
The program is currently being offered in at Phoenix High in Los
Angeles and in several secondary schools throughout London, England.
Teens & Toddlers is a curriculum based program which Children:
Our Ultimate Investment seeks to have other communities replicate,
and invites interested parties to contact Children: Our Ultimate
Investment and Children Our Ultimate Investment-UK at the addresses
given below
Children:
Our Ultimate Investment
Laura Huxley, President and Karen Pfeiffer, Administrative Director
Children Our Ultimate Investment
13029 A Victory Blvd. #357
North Hollywood, CA 91606
323-461-8248 (phone)
323-461-8470 (fax)
childrenoui@aol.com
www.children-ourinvestment.org
Ms. Diana Whitmore,
MA Ed., International Director
Children Our Ultimate Investment-UK
92-94 Tooley Street, London Bridge
London SE1 2TH
0870 870 1314 (phone)
0870 870 4281 (fax)
(When dialing from the United States use 011-44)
diana@teensandtoddlers.org
www.teensandtoddlers.org
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