University of Washington
Parenting Clinic

OUR INTERVENTIONS

The highly acclaimed Incredible Years Programs

The Incredible Years Series is a set of three, separate, comprehensive, multi-faceted, and developmentally-based curriculums for parents, teachers, and children designed to promote emotional and social competence and to prevent, reduce, and treat behavior and emotional problems in young children.

The parent, teacher, and child programs can be used alone or in combination.

A 24 page article describing The Incredible Years Series can be downloaded by clicking here.

A summary of the benefits for Schools, Parents, and Children as well as the Commitments to be made to the program can be downloaded by clicking here.

Awards

Winner of the US Leila Rowland National Mental Health Award for outstanding prevention program for children, 1997.
Selected as “Model Program” (2000) by Center for Substance Abuse Prevention (CSAP).
Selected as a “Blueprints Model Program” because of its rigorous evaluation and proven effectiveness by the Center for the Study of Prevention of Violence. Please see their website at http://www.colorado.edu/cspv/blueprints/model/ten_IncredibleYears.html
Results of program published in numerous articles and chapters in Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, Clinical Child Psychology, and Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and others.

Target Domains

Individual
Family
School
Peer Group

Strategic Interventions

Group Parenting Skills Training
Group Teacher Classroom Management Training
Group Support for parents, teachers and children
Self-Management Skills
Peer Support
Decision-Making Skills
Training of Group Leaders/Facilitators
Interpersonal Skills for Parents, Teachers and Children
Home/School Bonding and Connections

Content of Parent, Teacher and Children Training Programs

This series of programs addresses multiple risk factors across settings (school and home) known to be related to the development of conduct disorders in children. In all three training programs, trained leaders use videotape scenes to structure the content, stimulate group discussion and problem-solving, and sharing of ideas.

Incredible Years Parent Program

The Incredible Years parenting series includes three types of parent programs. The BASIC program emphasizes parenting skills known to promote children's social competence and reduce behavior problems, such as: how to play with children, helping children learn, effective praise and use of incentives, effective limit-setting, and strategies to handle misbehavior. The ADVANCE program emphasizes parent interpersonal skills, such as: effective communication skills, anger management, problem-solving between adults, and ways to give and get support. The SUPPORTING YOUR CHILD’S EDUCATION program (known as SCHOOL) emphasizes parenting approaches designed to promote children’s academic skills, such as: reading skills, parental involvement in setting up predictable homework routines, and building collaborative relationships with teachers.

Incredible Years Teacher Program

This series emphasizes effective classroom management skills, such as: the effective use of teacher attention, praise and encouragement, use of incentives for difficult behavior problems, proactive teaching strategies, how to manage inappropriate classroom behaviors, and the importance of building positive relationships with students. In 2000, a new series of training videotapes were developed which show teachers how to implement the Dinosaur Social Skills and Problem-Solving Curriculum as a prevention program in the classroom with all children. There is both a preschool/kindergarten and grade one - two version of this training.

Incredible Years Child Program

The Dinosaur Child Curriculum emphasizes training children in skills such as emotional literacy, empathy or perspective taking, friendship skills, anger management, interpersonal problem solving, school rules, and how to be successful at school. It is designed for use as a “pull out” treatment program for small groups of children exhibiting conduct problems or can be offered to the entire classroom in circle time discussions combined with small group activities in 60 lessons.

Who Can Benefit from the Program?

All parents of children ages 2-8 can benefit from the parent program. Children ages 4-8 can benefit from the child program. Families with children ages 4-8 who have been diagnosed with conduct problems experience the best results by participating in both the parent and child versions of the program and by involving the school and teachers in treatment.

Studies have included families from a variety of cultures including Hispanic, African- American, Asian, and Caucasian families.

The parent program can benefit parents by strengthening their parenting skills and involvement with children’s school activities.

The teacher program can benefit teachers by strengthening their classroom management skills and ability to offer curriculum focused on social and emotional literacy.

The child program can benefit children by promoting their social competence and reducing conduct problems.

Proven Results

Parenting Programs – Over the past 25 years, there have been 6 randomized control group evaluations of the parenting series conducted by Dr. Webster- Stratton and her colleagues at the University of Washington Parenting Clinic and 6 independent replications by other investigators. These studies have indicated significantly:

Increased parent positive affect such as praise and decreased use of criticism, harsh discipline, and negative commands.
Increased parent use of effective limit setting by replacing spanking and harsh discipline with non-violent discipline techniques and increased monitoring of children.
Reduced parental depression and increased parental self-confidence.
Increased positive family communication and problem solving.
Increased parent bonding and involvement with teachers and classrooms.
Reduced conduct problems in children’s interactions with parents and increases in their positive affect and compliance to parental commands.

Teacher Programs - Two randomized control group evaluations of the teacher training series indicated significantly:

Increased children’s positive affect and cooperation with teachers, positive interactions with peers, school readiness, and engagement with school activities.
Reduced child and peer aggression in the classroom.
Increased teacher use of praise and encouragement and proactive classroom management strategies.
Decreased teacher use of criticism and harsh discipline.
Increased teacher bonding with parents.

Child Programs - Two randomized control group evaluations of the child training series indicated significantly:

Increased children's appropriate cognitive problem-soliving strategies and more prosocial conflict management strategies with peers.
Increased children’s social competence and appropriate play skills.
Reduced conduct problems at home and school.

VIDEOTAPES AND MANUALS:

Over 30 different videotapes and manuals have been produced by Dr. Webster-Stratton with accompanying manuals.

For more information see www.incredibleyears.com