Socium

The family environment in Romania is one of the most abusive for children, 87.7% of reported cases of abuse are in the family. Moreover, the main methods of discipline used by parents are raising their voices, threats and physical punishment. In order to respond to such problems, HoltIS Association with the support of the UNICEF Representative in Romania developed a parenting education programme to support the development of skills for parents from the vulnerable and disadvantaged categories. (1) Background: The present study aims to investigate how parents’ participation in parenting education courses contributes to changing parents’ behaviour towards children and reducing child abuse. (2) Methods: The study is a qualitative one, using the focus group and individual interview for data collection. From the 85 schools where such parenting programmes were organized, 6 schools were selected, whose parents, parent educators and representatives participated in the focus groups and individual interviews; (3) Results: Parents’ participation in parenting education courses contributes to developing self-control, to change the behaviours into positive ones towards their own children, to spending quality time with their own children; at the same time, parents’ participation has positive effects in terms of reducing school dropout, improving children’s school results, reducing absenteeism and changing children’s behaviour towards school and towards their peers. In addition, the organization of parenting courses by trained teaching staff has beneficial effects on school culture; (4) Conclusions: Parenting programmes are one of the most effective forms of preventing child abuse, the family being the most abusive environment for children. The data collected from parents and teaching staff emphasize the transformations of behaviour at the level of all three actors: child, parent and teachers, with effects on the reduction of child abuse.