The first four practitioners of the MellowParenting educational program were accredited on Friday 19 May. The accreditation certificates were handed in by the representatives of MellowParenting organization from Great Britain, at a good practices exchange event organized for the practitioners from 9 regions of the country, participating in the program implementation. The four accredited practitioners are from Chisinau municipality, and have finished the first two Mellow Moms groups with babies and toddlers. Other 10 participants under accreditation are from Calarasi, Cahul, Falesti, Nisporeni, and Ungheni regions.
Present at the event, Stela Grigoras, Minister of Labour, Social Protection and Family, appreciated the positive results obtained by the practitioners in their implementation and promotion of the MellowParenting program: “I am sure that MellowParenting will be extended in all country and included into the social services portfolio provided at the local level. The diversity of the groups of children included into the program, the focus on the early years of life, help to early identify signs of concern and to ensure the child’s well-being, primarily, by strengthening parenting abilities. We hope that the practitioners in the pilot regions will start Mellow Dads groups soon, because fathers, along with the mothers, play crucial role in the education and development of their children”, said minister Grigoras.
Viorica Mart, senior consultant at the preuniversity education Department of the Ministry of Education mentioned: “The implementation of the MellowParenting program in Moldova will essentially contribute to ensuring the access of children with special needs and their families to community social and educational support services. The support provided to the parents/carers of children in early age, and even before child birth, is very important in the context when we, as a country, generally lack parenting education services. It is also important that this model is still being piloted, and the team is testing the working mechanisms to ensure the smooth implementation and replication of the model at the country level”, concluded Mrs. Mart.
The MellowParenting Program supports parents in the improvement of their parenting skills at various stages of the child’s development, since pre-birth till pre-school age, and is based on principles of attachment, social learning, and the theory of cognitive behaviour. The program contains 14 group sessions that include lectures, “have-a-go” home activities, video sessions, joint activities of mothers and their children, such as lunch-time, creative activities, etc.
The event was organized by Partnerships for Every Child, in collaboration with the Ministry of Labour, Social Protection and Family, within MellowParenting development program funded by the World Childhood Foundation and the EU-funded project “Improving access to community-based early years and pre-school support services for vulnerable children with special needs in Moldova”.