The Parent Centre

About Our Centre

The Parent Centre was established in 1983 and provides education and training workshops, home-visiting programmes, community talks, support groups as well as parental counselling. While the Centre is based in the Western Cape, we are very keen to respond to requests for training from other areas.

There are special projects/programmes in the following communities: Hanover Park, Mitchells Plain, Khayelitsha, Guguletu, Nyanga, Crossroads, Imizamo Yethu (Houtbay), and Phillipi.

The Parent Centre presents a variety of workshops for parents and grandparents. View more details.

Parent Centre’s Approach to Parents and Parenting.

Preparing our children for the world they will face as adults is an awesome and challenging task. Equipping children with a positive self-esteem that will enable them to act wisely and assertively in their lives is the most important responsibility we carry. However, parenting is not instinctive. Attitudes, information and skills need to be learned and many parents lack confidence or feel ill equipped for the task of providing the emotional containment, information and skills their children need to realise their creative potential.

Rapid social changes, economic hardship and the breakdown of traditional methods of raising children have left parents feeling overwhelmed, unskilled and powerless in communities that are largely under resourced.

Many parents struggle against overwhelming emotional, social and/or financial difficulties that render them powerless in varying degrees, in their duties as parents. Without the support they need they fail their children by not protecting them, informing them, showing them affection, respecting them, teaching them and encouraging them. The result is that a negative cycle gets repeated generation after generation. Even parents in relatively secure circumstances feel unsure when they find themselves facing the normal and common problems of children growing up at various stages.

While children are born with their own individual genetic make-up and potential and will be significantly influenced in the course of their development by many people and experiences, the child’s early environment within the family plays a pivotal role in the ultimate development of that potential. Despite the many structural changes that families have undergone and the different situations and lifestyles that families experience, the family “continues to be the major institution through which children pass en route to adulthood.” (Weissbourd, B & Grimm, C. 1981 p.6)

Children’s experiences of the world are intimately intertwined with their family’s sense of confidence, competence and self-worth. The establishment of attachments and emotional security and the development of genetic potential are largely dependent on the quality of the intimate familial relationships particularly in the early years.

Families in difficulty are often unwilling to seek the help they need and problems are often hidden or denied for years. Acknowledging failure as a parent and a need for help is shameful and there is often a fear of being blamed by the professional services available. Treatment when it is available, is beyond the means of most families.

The Centre aims to provide a service for parents that is preventive in nature. A service that is sufficiently non-threatening that parents feel able to seek the support and help they need timeously, before problems become entrenched.

VISION

The Parent Centre strives to contribute to a society in which every parent/caregiver is able to raise resilient and well-balanced children in ways in which they can develop their full potential, protected from victimization and abuse in communities free from violence.

MISSION

The Parent Centre is a non-profit organization working mainly in the Western Cape.

Through primary prevention, we aim to:

• facilitate the safety and healthy emotional development of the child from birth to early adulthood;
• promote the well-being and self-esteem of the parent/caregiver;
• prevent child abuse, victimization and neglect;
• contribute to the prevention of teen pregnancy, substance abuse and HIV and AIDS;
• enhance the child’s capacity to be a resilient, caring, competent and creative member of society; and
• encourage the establishment of a loving, nurturing environment that strengthens the family and society.

We do this by working directly with parents, caregivers and educators – and indirectly by collaborating with other people and organizations which support and work with parents.

OUR SERVICES INCLUDE:

1. Individual counselling programme: Counselling is short term and aimed at engaging the parent into a partnership where information is shared and the parent’s own problem-solving ability is facilitated.

2. Parenting Skills Training Programmes: These address the most common parenting needs and concerns. They are offered at the Centre and for parent groups in the communities. The content is basic parenting skills, e.g. effective discipline, understanding children’s behaviour, listening to and acknowledging children’s feelings, building children’s self-esteem, and problem-solving. Workshops on special issues such as sibling rivalry, raising boys, dealing constructively with anger and conflict, surviving adolescence, understanding and managing temperament are offered as well.

3. Teenage Parenting Programme: This is offered to teenage parents who are attending high school and those whose care giving or parental obligations have meant that they have had to leave school. A six-month programme assists young parents to cope with the difficult challenges of being young parents. The programme also addresses their personal development, HIV/AIDS prevention and life skills. The programme has established networks with skills training service providers for those teenagers not continuing with their schooling in order to ensure that their income generating and employment opportunities are increased.

4. Support Groups for Mothers and Toddlers, Mothers and Babies and Teenage Mothers: These are held at the Centre and in various community venues. They provide an opportunity for mothers to meet informally, share ideas and support each other. The co-ordinator or a guest speaker may give input on specific topics from time to time. Mothers are involved in planning the programme, promoting the service and assisting with the group itself.

5. Community Education and Awareness: Regular talks are offered on all aspects of parenting at Mother and Infant Health Centres, in Aids support groups, schools, and other community venues where parents meet. Talks on Community Radio Stations are very popular and we find that we reach many more parents this way.

6. Training of Trainers - Parenting skills and workshop facilitation training is regularly offered to professionals and community workers who wish to become involved in parenting work in their communities.

7. Behaviour Management Training Programme for teachers, educare workers, childcare workers and others are also run on request.

8. Parent Infant Home visiting intervention in Khayelitsha, Hanover Park and Gugulethu, Imizamo Yethu and Mitchell’s Plain. It is in this work where the focus on prevention and early intervention receives most attention. The emphasis of this programme is on mother and infant bonding and parent education and empowerment. Pre- and post-natal visiting is undertaken by community family support workers who work with the parents’ strengths and provide emotional support in a structured programme that sensitises a mother to her infants needs and communications, shares parenting and child development information and link mothers with appropriate resources. They also pick up early signs of possible maternal depression, health difficulties, neglect or abuse and if necessary, refer the family to other resources for assistance and/or more particular intervention. The mother is assessed for appropriateness for the project and invited onto the project.

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Contact Details:

The Parent Centre,
Upper Level,
Wynberg Centre,
c/o 123 Main Road
& Piers Road,
Wynberg.
7800

Phone: 021 762 0116
Fax: 021 762 5160

Khayelitsha
Phone: 021 361 9382

Mitchell’s Plain
Phone: 021 372 1121
Fax: 021 372 5592

Membership of the Parent Centre includes access to the Library, and an outstanding selection of parenting books. Whether you are a parent, or a professional working with parents, you will find relevant and up-to-date titles on a broad range of parenting issues. for more details.