Young People in Focus

SECTION 3

3.10 Overall Conclusions

Overall, parents who completed ‘Before’ and ‘After’ questionnaires appear to have experienced greater changes than the young people involved. Parents were remarkably positive about the project itself, the staff, and the benefits that the intervention had for their family and their parenting capabilities. 

From the point of view of the young people who completed the ‘Before’ and ‘After’ questionnaires, there was overall a high level of positive expectation of, and satisfaction with, the project. The majority of young people were also positive about the intervention and about the staff they worked with. There were a few young people, however, who did not find the project interesting or helpful and did not rate the staff positively. Overall, young people seemed to experience fewer positive changes than parents and in some cases their behaviour deteriorated during the course of the intervention. 

As stated above, the changes that did take place for these parents and young people cannot be said to be as a result of their involvement in the project, as there are other factors which may have influenced these changes.  However, the project may well have contributed to them.

One issue that emerged from the qualitative depth interviews with parents and young people was that some families were facing long term multiple issues – including school refusal, anti social and offending behaviour and difficult relationships with siblings and parents. It could be argued that the IYPP Project may be more intensive than the interventions received by many young people who come to the attention of YOTs or social services, but it was not designed to offer a comprehensive package of interventions to tackle all of these major issues. It is likely that the benefits of the interventions could be enhanced if they were seen as part of a wider and longer term programme to support the considerable changes which many of these families are seeking.

Like many other parenting initiatives, the IYPP Project was much more successful in engaging mothers than fathers. Because of the low numbers of fathers who did attend the data do not allow us to analyse the significance of this on outcomes, but where both parents are involved with the young people, more effort should be made to involve both of them in the intervention⁹.

Finally, the study showed that the involvement of young people clearly presented numerous challenges to project staff around confidentiality, training and accommodating the sometimes-conflicting wishes of parents and young people. On the other hand this project looks as if it provided an opportunity for parents and young people to work together on the difficult issues confronting their families, and for a large number of young people and their parents, this seems to have been a worthwhile and valuable experience. 

« Previous | Next: 3.11 »