UQ program wins national anti-violence award

The University of Queensland's Positive Parenting Program (Triple P) has won the national 1997 Australian Violence Prevention Award.

The $20,000 award was presented to Triple P's director, Associate Professor Matt Sanders, at Parliament House in Canberra by Attorney-General and Minister for Justice Senator Amanda Vanstone.

Dr Sanders said the program provided early intervention for children with severe disruptive behaviour disorders, who were at risk of becoming involved in anti-social behaviour, criminal activity and violence in later life.

'We want to take a preventive approach and at the same time destigmatise parent training so people are not seen as failures for taking parenting courses,' he said.

Triple P, based at the University's Parenting and Family Support Centre in the School of Psychology, aims to prevent serious behavioural or adjustment problems in children by teaching parents alternatives to harsh, inconsistent and coercive methods of discipline.

It is the second time the program has won such an award. The Positive Parenting of Preschoolers Program won a National Violence Prevention Award in 1994.

'Studies show that family risk factors strongly influence children's development,' Dr Sanders said.

Risk factors included harsh and inconsistent discipline practices, inadequate supervision and monitoring of children's behaviour, marital conflict and breakdown, parental psychopathology and a lack of a warm, positive parent-child relationship.

The parenting skills taught through Triple P promote positive interaction between parents and children, and consistent discipline to reduce aggression in children.

'We know that there is a significant reduction in parents' use of smacking and physical abuse towards children after they have been in the program,' said Dr Sanders.

'Mothers are less depressed, there are lower levels of stress and marital conflict, and all these factors are risk factors.

'Only one in 10 parents has had any parenting education, and in one survey about 28 percent of parents said their kids had emotional problems,' Dr Sanders said.

'The strength of this program is that the strategy operates on five levels, tailored to the level of risk.'

Developed by Dr Sanders and his colleagues from the School of Psychology, Triple P is now also operating in New Zealand and Germany, will begin in the United Kingdom in November and is being translated into Japanese.

For more information, contact Dr Sanders on (07) 3365 7309.