Resilient Families Program: Promoting Resilience through Parenting

The goal of the Resilient Families Program (RFP) is to strengthen parents' inner abilities, empathy and self-compassion so as to increase sensitive and responsive caregiving and support early child development and well-being.... [ view full abstract ]

The goal of the Resilient Families Program (RFP) is to strengthen parents' inner abilities, empathy and self-compassion so as to increase sensitive and responsive caregiving and support early child development and well-being. RFP consists of six group workshops in which parents learn more about what young children need to be resilience through RFP board and card games, crafts, and mindful compassion exercises. Six parallel workshops with young children center on self regulation strategies and learning to play the RFP board and card games. The effectiveness of RFP is measured using assessments and interview questions completed by families before and after participation in the program, as well as assessments of children's executive functioning and self regulation skills. Parents complete questionnaires that focus on their child’s behavior, as well as their own levels of stress, mindfulness and feelings of mastery as a parent, and also provide diaries of daily hassles and family game times. In this talk we will summarize the rationale and promise of RFP, our progress in implementing RFP with underserved Latina families, and describe our model of community ownership in which former RFP participants become co-leaders of RFP in their communities.