ACT Raising Safe Kids

ACT Parenting Class begins Thursday, April 18th

$100 Gift Card given to every participant who completes at least 8 of 9 sessions!

This class includes nine, 2-hour sessions:

April 18, 25

May 2, 9, 16, 23, 30

June 6, 20

Location: South Harborcreek United Methodist Church

7929 McGill Road, Harborcreek, PA

Time: 5:45 – 7:45 PM

Childcare will be provided.

To register or for more information, contact Ashley, our Prevention Coordinator, at [email protected]

About the ACT Raising Safe Kids Program

ACT Raising Safe Kids is an early intervention program for parents and caregivers of young children (birth to 10 years old). Its purpose is to teach positive parenting skills and practices that 1) help create stable, safe, healthy, nurturing home environments and 2) help build family relationships that protect children from adverse experiences such as abuse and neglect and their resultant lifelong consequences.

The ACT program, developed by the American Psychological Association, is based on research showing that:

The early years are a critical time in development when children are learning basic skills that have long-term effects on their lives.
Exposure to adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), such as maltreatment, can have serious and long-standing impacts on brain development, health, and emotional, cognitive, and behavioral development.
Parents and caregivers are teachers, protectors and advocates for their children.

The ACT program:

Is conducted in small groups and is designed for parents and caregivers from all backgrounds, regardless of their level of risk as abusers.
Can be integrated into an organization’s existing interventions and services for parents. For example, ACT can complement interventions focusing on issues such as bullying prevention and intimate partner violence, and can be integrated into wider community-based efforts to prevent violence.
Has strong evidence supporting the program’s major outcomes include improving positive parenting skills; reducing coercive, harsh, negative parenting practices; increasing positive, nurturing parenting; increasing parental control and regulation of their emotions; and reducing children’s conduct problems and bullying.
Achieves its goals by partnering with a variety of community organizations such as social service and mental health providers, hospitals, childcare centers, schools, universities, and churches.
Can be conducted by an organization after employees have been trained as ACT facilitators. Alternatively, clients can possibly be referred to sessions conducted by other facilitators.