The territory-wide parent talks aim at reaching out to more parents to deliver essential mental health advice for fostering parent-child relationship and enhancing students’ mental health. Two talks will be organised for the public during the 2024-25 school year.
Two school-based mental health talks will also be delivered to each participating school for their students’ parents.
The parent education curriculum is an 8-session in-depth training, with topics tailored to the needs of parents at different levels. These structured lessons will be delivered by school staff members or teachers who have undergone training by CSRP clinical professionals. Initially, our project team will aid in this process, providing necessary support and guidance. As the trainers gain proficiency, we anticipate them to carry out the curriculum autonomously.The topics in the parent mental health education programme will vary among different levels.
Early childhood requires children to develop self-regulation and emotion management skills as well as develop social competencies that would enable them to have a happy transition into school. As such, the kindergarten programme would feature topics such as parenting styles that could cultivate children’s positive character traits, discipline and emotional management strategies, as well as parental stress coping, which could in turn decrease behavioural issues occurring in their children etc.
Children are increasingly exploring self-concept, social relationships and their potential negative influences. Effective parenting for children in this age range requires greater regulation and monitoring of their behaviour, as well as fostering the engagement in prosocial actions and the prevention in anti-social behaviour. Therefore, the proposed primary school programme would include topics on nurturing empathy and kindness through constructive parent-child communication, cultivating gratitude and optimism, as well as recognising and responding to warning signs of child depression and anxiety.
Adolescents are increasingly influenced by peers and are more readily exposed to risky behaviours. Physical, social and cognitive changes could also pose psychological challenges to adolescents. The education of parents of such risks, and the promotion of parent-adolescent communications about these topics would be crucial to an effective parenting programme. Hence, the topics of the secondary level programme would include: nurturing positive romantic relationship; supporting and dealing with bullying; supporting academic success through positive parenting, as well as strategies to deal with anxiety, depression and other potential risks, such as eating disorders.