Engaging parents course now available to assist with wellbeing

A free online course for educators called Engaging Parents – An Introduction has been made available, and aims to support services to actively and effectively engage with parents about their children’s social and emotional wellbeing. The course is the first in a suite of two courses available through Emerging Minds – The National Workforce Centre for Child Mental Health.  

The introduction and the companion course – Engaging Parents in Context – are intended to support educators to sensitvely engage with parents, and to understand factors and circumstances that impact on parent’s family and social relationships and their relational capabilities.

The course, which takes up to two hours to complete, is designed for those working in services who are focused on infants and children, and services focused on parents and guardians in the health and welfare sectors.

Emerging Minds says that educators who complete the course will strengthen their understanding of factors and circumstances that impact a child’s social and emotional wellbeing, and the role educators can play as a practitioner by engaging with and supporting a parent in their parenting role to support a child’s mental health.

Educators will also have the opportunity to:

• reflect on their own current setting, practice, and what they aim to achieve when meeting and engaging with parents

• focus on what is meant by parent engagement, why it is important in supporting the mental health outcomes for children, and what parents say about engagement

• consider professional and parental factors that may impact on parent engagement

• consider and reflect on their own professional response to complexity in clients or families they are working with to understand the role they can play in early intervention and prevention to support child mental health.

Further information can be found on the Emerging Minds website.