Parenting Teenagers: Setting Up and Evaluating a Therapeutic Parent Consultation Service: Work in Progress

Abstract

The parenting of adolescents has been the focus of prolific international academic research, but in the UK there has been little attempt to develop clinical services targeted at the parents of teenagers. This article describes setting up a Parent Consultation Service (PCS), provided by child and adolescent psychotherapists, alongside a psychotherapy service for young people. The service is targeted at parents whose adolescents refuse, or fail, to engage in treatment in their own right. The parents of these troubled young people are often left with great anxiety for their children and can be bearing the brunt of their children’s emotions and behaviour without any access to sources of help. The PCS utilizes two measures; the Problem Perception Questionnaire and the Stress Index for Parents of Adolescents (SIPA), to provide data about the difficulties experienced by parents and to evaluate the outcome of the service. The results of a statistical analysis of the data show significant changes in parents’ perceptions of the problems in their relationship with their adolescent and in the stress levels they experience. A service evaluation survey shows that parents rate all aspects of the service highly. The results are discussed and linked to research on ‘authoritative’ parenting.