Universal Family Skills Programme for Prevention of Negative Social Outcomes in Low- and Middle-Income Countries.
Family skills programmes support caregivers to be better parents and strengthen positive age-specific and age appropriate family functioning and interactions. They promote a warm child-rearing style where parents set rules for acceptable behaviours, closely monitor free time and friendship patterns and become good role models while helping their children to acquire skills to make informed decisions. Owing to these changes, these programmes are effective in preventing a wide range of social and health problems, including preventing substance use, violence against children and youth violence, and crime. Family skills programmes have proven to be gender-sensitive (affecting boys and girls equally) interventions that provide positive effects on the mental wellbeing of parents and reduce parental and occupational stress. Additionally, they support the development of children resulting in fewer behavioral and emotional problems. Inspired by this body of knowledge UNODC Drug Prevention and Health Branch, Prevention Treatment and Rehabilitation Section has been actively promoting and piloting such evidence-based programmes globally since 2010 in over 30 low- and middle-income countries.
Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages SDG 3.5
Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all SDG 4.1, SDG 4.5, SDG 4.7
Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls SDG 5.2
Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels SDG 16.1, SDG 16.2
This open-source programme for low- and middle-income countries was developed and will be piloted in several countries thanks to the generous support of the Government of Japan and the people of Japan, US-INL, and Sweden.
