This study aims to determine the effects of the Parents Plus Children's Programme (PPCP) on children's symptoms of attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and on family functionality and parenting stress. The children in the study were aged 6–11 years, and they had been diagnosed with ADHD and had residual symptoms despite effective dosage and timing of their medication. Forty-six couples, who with their children met the eligibility criteria, were enrolled and randomly allocated to the PPCP or the control group. The intervention involved a 9-week, 2 h a week, parenting group exercise. Those in the PPCP group improved significantly more over time on Conners’ Parent Rating Scale-Revised, Family Assessment Device, and Parent Stress Index than those in the control condition. The trial is the first clinical study involving the parents of children with ADHD that addresses residual symptoms and functional impairments that remain despite the administration of the maximum effective dose of pharmacological treatment.

Drawing on an ESRC funded qualitative longitudinal study of young fatherhood, this article explores the experiences of young offender fathers, the complex intersection of offender and fatherhood pathways for young men and the impact of professional support and tailored intervention programmes on these processes. The article challenges the axiom of young offender fathers as inherently ‘risky’, and suggests the utility of a dynamic, life course approach to criminal policy and practice that recognises the fluidity of their life journeys, and brings ideas of redemption more centrally into the picture.

This article enquires into how parenting support, as concept, policy and provision, has penetrated the English social policy landscape, and critically considers why it has proved so popular with policy makers. It first outlines the existing policy configuration. The second section identifies some key factors precipitating the roll-out of parenting support and the third section takes an overview of the significance of the developments from a social and family policy perspective. The argument advanced is that the growth and expansion of parenting support is explained by a coming together of a set of political exigencies around ‘risk’ and the healthy child, and a set of policy ‘solutions’ which are seen to have high promise. In particular, parenting support has the advantage of being relatively easily generalisable (especially in the form of programmes) and aligns with several current developments of the welfare state, towards activation, provision of support through services and an interest in localism.

This paper describes a number of themes that emerged from a qualitative research study into the effects of a parenting programme on family life (Mockford, 2000). Existing research points to many valuable outcomes of parenting programmes including improved maternal psychosocial health (Barlow and Coren, 2000), improved relationships (Grimshaw and McGuire, 1998; Smith, 1997) and reduced child behaviour problems (Barlow, 1999; Patterson et al., 1993; 2002b). There has, however, been little qualitative work undertaken with parents who have attended a parenting programme. The findings from this study show that in addition to many positive consequences, there were a number of unintended consequences of attending a parenting programme. In particular, women spoke of the difficulties that they faced at home when trying to apply the techniques that they had learned on the parenting programme. These difficulties included gaining the support of partners in implementing the techniques learned, changing their established habits and those of their partners, finding the time to parent together, and incorporating the techniques into their already busy lives. These findings also suggest that a change in one parent’s approach to parenting may result in increased discrepancies in parenting techniques between the parent who attended the programme and the parent who did not, and that this may result in parental conflict.