In SOCL-306: Stress & Crisis in Families, we completed a parent support project and developed a resource called the Parenting Toolbox. This resource is a booklet that was provided to parents of preschoolers at the Head Start program in Farmville, Virginia. This program is designed for preschoolers that are in low income families and allows these children access to early childhood education. The purpose of the parent support project was to help relieve the stress of parents with young children through educating them and providing resources. We conducted research and analyzed literature as well as worked collaboratively to best provide supportive parenting strategies, educate on developmental milestones of preschool aged children, and mental health/self-care tips.
From participating in this project, I learned that developing resources for parents is an important and beneficial task. Resources help parents to be able to assist their children in development and education as well as encourage parents regarding challenges and burnout. The development of resources requires research and consultation with the population that will receive the resource, the parents of preschoolers. It is important that the resource is tailored to help the population with the unique challenges they may face. For this reason, research and consultation is a vital step of the developmental process.
This project taught me how resources, like the Parenting Toolbox, can help families reduce stress and build resiliency. Some families, especially those that are low income, do not have certain parenting knowledge that others have. This knowledge may include age appropriate activities, ways to deal with certain challenges, and how to take care of themselves while also caring for their child. Resources can help improve parents’ knowledge on these subjects and increase their confidence when parenting their child. If parents are more knowledgeable of the parenting information that is provided in these resources, it can reduce their stress surrounding parenting their child and build their resiliency when facing challenges.
Every project has strengths as well as areas for improvement. The strengths that this project had were teamwork, the SMART objectives, and the topics addressed in the resource. The teamwork was a strength because it allowed us to discuss the development of the resource in smaller groups rather than in one large group. Sometimes when large projects are only completed in a large group setting, certain things are missed or some people may not be able to participate. However, the smaller groups allowed everyone the opportunity to participate equally. The SMART objectives were a strength because they gave us guidance and helped us to ensure that we were going in the right direction and including the correct information when developing the resource. The topics addressed were a strength because they are important topics and provide the most pertinent information that parents of preschoolers may need. One area for improvement that, if done differently, could have improved the overall product is the division of work when designing the resource. This is an area for improvement because the final product is not entirely cohesive, and may be more appealing if it was. We split up into our groups for the design part of the process. Due to this, each section of the resource has a different format, coloring, font, etc. If we had worked on the design together as a class, the product could be more cohesive and look more appealing to the parents.
Professional skills that I developed from the project that can be useful in a workplace or graduate school setting are collaborative skills, research and application, and the creation of SMART objectives. This project helped me develop the ability to work with others on different tasks in ways such as how to communicate with one another, how to divide work, ect. It also taught me how to research certain topics and apply that research to the development of products and works. I now know how to determine what information is important to include in the final product and what information may not be necessary to include. The final skill that this project helped me develop is the ability to create accurate SMART objectives. These objectives must relate to the topic and the desired final outcome. They need to be specific, measurable, attainable, relative, and time-framed. This project has taught me how to create these objectives and ensure that they are accurate to the topic of the project.
I contributed to this project and its final product through various strengths and the value that I brought to the team. One strength of mine that I used to help contribute to the project is my writing skills. I have significant experience in professional writing and I helped our team determine how to word our different sections of the product. I also contributed to the project through my strength of research on the different developmental milestones of children ages 3-5. I assisted in educating the class on the different milestones and determining which milestones were important to include in the final product. One area that I could improve in is my ability for design. I did not contribute greatly to the design of the product because it is not one of my strengths. I would have been able to more equally contribute to this part of the developmental process if I had more skills in this area. Overall, I believe that I provided great contributions to this project and its final product.
Here you can access the final collaborative slide presentation of the Parent Support Resource Project and the final product “The Parent Toolbox: Practical Tips and Strategies for Parenting Preschoolers” https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1tjQBO0Li_7oGffeG2vNGueoAcclp5LsD/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=100048170825729685006&rtpof=true&sd=true