A prevention and treatment program for small children with conduct problems.
The Incredible Years Training Series has two long-range goals: the first is to develop comprehensive treatment programs for young children with early onset conduct problems; the second is the development of cost-effective, community based universal programs that all families and children can use to prevent children from developing conduct problems in the first place.
The purpose of the series is to prevent delinquency, drug abuse and violence. The short term goals are to
• reduce conduct problems in children by decreasing negative behaviours and non-compliance with parents at home
• decrease peer aggression and disruptive behaviour in the classroom
• promote social, emotional and academic skills
• increase children’s understanding of feelings
• increase children’s conflict management skills and reduce negative attributions, and
• increase acacdemic engagement, school readiness, and cooperation with teachers.
The IY Training Series have been evaluated by the US Departement of Justice and deemed preventive of crime.
The various programs in the training series
Parent program ”Basic”: Parents to six children meet 12 – 14 times for 2 hours weekly sessions. The sessions are being led by two group leaders, who work according to a highly structured treatment manual. The parents watch altogether 250 video vignettes showing parents and children interacting, and based on these vignettes the group leaders help the parents to extract principles for teaching the children appropriate behaviours and for changing inappropriate ones. Parents are role playing the principles, practicing the principles at home with the child, reading materials, and recording the child’s behaviour in between sessions. The topics being covered are How to play and praise, tangible Rewards, effective limit setting, handling misbehaviour and problem solving.
Parent program ”Advanced”: This program follows ”Basic” with 8 to 10 additional sessions . The topics are: effective communication between children and parents (active listening, communicate positively about self and others, give and get support), problem solving with children and problem solving between parents.
Child program ”Dinosaur school”: Form and structure parallels parents groups, and the number of sessions are 18 – 20. The topics covered is synchronised with those of the parent groups, and they follow each other closely. The program strengthens the child’s social and emotional competencies, teaches them anger management and the use of effective problem solving strategies, develops their skills in initiating and maintaining friendships, and train their conversational skills and their abilities to solve problems that arise in social interaction.
Teacher program: Offered in the form of 5 daylong workshops. Again, the form and structure mirrors that of the other programs in the series. The topics covered are: a) strategies for prevention of behaviour problems in the classroom (how to be the pro-active teacher), b) how to develop positive relationship with the students, c) the value of attention, encouragement and praise, d) reward systems, d) how to handle negative behaviours.
The Norwegian research and implementation effort
Until the mid-1990's, children and young people with severe behavioural disturbances, and their families, received little help from the health, social and educational services in Norway. Many of the worst affected children and young people did not get help at all.
The Center of Child and Adolescent Mental Health in North Norway (RBUP) at the Medical faculty of the University of Tromsø, in collaboration with the corresponding center at The University of Technology and Science in Trondheim, initiated the import, implementation and research of The Incredible Years program in Norway.
The decision to adopt The Incredible Years treatment program for work with families of small children in Norway was based on the 1998- publishing of the Norwegian Research Councils report from an expert committee, which provided a summary of available research dealing with severe behavioural problems among children and young people. The committee had been set up as a response to general concern about behavioural problems, and anti-social and delinquent behaviour among children and young people. It recommended adoption of The Incredible Years program. The authorities followed the recommendation and responded positively to an initiative from the Universites in Tromsø and Trondheim to plan and launch a large-scale trial of The Incredible Years program at the two universities and its affiliated child- and adolescent out-patient clinics.
The work was funded by the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs and Norwegian Research Council.
The clinical trial was set up as a three-group experimental design, in which effects of treatment (Basic Program and combined Basic Program and Dinosaur school) would be compared with non-treatment (waiting list control group). At the end of the projected two-year trial period, the trial material included 127 children.
The main findings from the research match the results from the program developer and independent research groups in UK and Canada: Approx 65% of the children score in the normal area in dedicated instruments for measurements of behaviour problems. A similar proportion of the children do not meet the criteria for diagnosis of conduct problems one year after treatment. It is a significant reduction in harsh parenting, family stress related to parenting and depression symptoms in the parents. It is a significant increase in child’s social competence and positive parenting.
National implementation
The national implementation secretary is situated at Center of Child and Adolescent Mental Health at the University of Tromsø lead by professor Willy-Tore Mørch. The secretary employ 10 mentors certified to train new group leaders all over the country. At present about 60 mental health agencies are offering The Incredible Years program in Norway increasing with 10 to 20 new agencies each year.
International ramifications and contacts
The massive research effort and consecutive comprehensive implementation of the The Incredible Years programs in Norway has generated an abundance of international contacts and cooperation. First and foremost is the intense contact with the program developer Professor Carolyn Webster-Stratton at the Parenting Clinic at the University of Washington in Seattle, USA. We also enjoy the cooperation with Maudsley Hospital at University of London, UK, Manchester Children´s University Hospital, at the University in Bangor, Wales, Oregon Research Institute, Oregon, USA, University of Lund, Sweden, and The Paedagogical University of Karelia, Russia. In fact, the dissemination of the Incredible Years in Sweden, Denmark and Russia is partly orchestrated from the University of Tromsø. The implementation and research of The Incredible years in Karelia, Russia is a part of the Barents Health and Social program.
For more information, see our international home page: www.incredibleyears.com