Nurturing Families Program

Mutual Ground provides a free 8-week program open to the community called the Nurturing Families Program (NFP), an evidence based, strength-based, family focused, and trauma informed curriculum. The program is designed for parents of all ages, with one or multiple children, and children with special needs. The programs objective is to focus on strengthening parenting skills through self-discovery, application, and realization. Nurturing Families allows parents to identify generational parenting practices and how culture impacts parenting in order to guide a new generation of parents with healthy parenting ideology. Additionally, Nurturing Families encourages parents to discipline through their child’s head and heart emphasizing on empathy and compassion. By increasing child empathy parents increase their bond/attachment with their children therefore emphasizing in appropriate family roles.

In our Nurturing Families classes, we provide psycho education and hand on activities which increase a parent’s understanding of their children’s growth and development. As facilitators we model behavior for our clients in order for them to practice at home. Nurturing Families also builds parents self-worth by assisting parents in understanding their purpose in life, letting go of emotional baggage, and increasing their awareness about living a healthy lifestyle. Lastly, Nurturing families emphasizes on increasing healthy happy relationships between children and adults, peers, and co-parenting relationships. The end goal is for parents to be able to identify “what kind of parents they would like to be”.

NFP utilizes a tool called Adult-Adolescent Parenting Inventory (AAPI 2.5) which identifies neglectful and abusive parent ideology through an assortment of questions. Parents take a pre and post-test. It is typical that by the end of the 8-week program parents have grown in the five domains which include; empathy, appropriate expectations of children, appropriate family roles, the use of alternative discipline techniques instead of corporal punishment, and the increase of independence and autonomy in children.

The curriculum is designed to spark conversation, the facilitator asks open discussion questions which often times participants jump right in to answer. Clients have reported that by the end of class they feel as if they are attending a support group with other parents. They give each other feedback and validation on the task of being a parent. One client reported “The focus on family cycles, patterns, emotions, parenting skills, and self-care was a surprise as it wasn’t just a “parenting class”. It taught me a lot about myself, how my life experiences effect my parenting and what I am passing down as I teach my children from an entirely different perspective.”

Click there to view or register for our next session of the Nurturing Families Program.

Written by
Adilene Lopez
Family Support Coordinator at Mutual Ground