Purpose of Inventory Assessment

Gathering valid information for decision making.

The functional purpose of assessment is to gather information for decision makers. Families, professionals in the helping fields, agency administrators and funding sources are typical decision makers that rely on information to assist them in their decision making.

Assessment data can help professionals in several ways:

Assessment data can assist professionals in deciding if parents have achieved an acceptable level of parenting competence. This is of critical importance in placement or re-unification decisions.
Assessment data can also determine if the instruction or program need to be modified to meet the needs of the families being served.
Funding sources make gathering research and evaluation data on the effectiveness of program mandatory for future or continued funding. Agencies who gather assessment data stand a much higher probability in receiving funding.

Assessing Parenting Beliefs

As a result of our early and continual positive and negative childhood experiences, a belief system forms which guides us in making choices for our behavior. Over time, these experiences normalize our thought processes which form healthy and diseased cellular networks. These networks shape our behavior. In his book, “Why We Believe What We Believe,” Dr. Andrew Newberg describes four components that make up our beliefs:

Perceptions: All the information we receive about ourselves and about the world through our senses.
Cognition: All the abstract conceptual processes that our brain uses to organize and make sense of our perceptions which include memories and unconscious thoughts.
Emotions: Emotions help us establish the intensity and value of every perceptual and cognitive experience we have.
Social Consensus: Our beliefs are influenced by the input we receive form others. Social consensus is important for the beliefs to emerge into social consciousness.

Clinical Interpretation of Parenting Profiles

General clinical information is provided to help professionals interpret the parenting profiles and to create effective parenting interventions that are designed to build positive, nurturing parenting behaviors. Agency reports and statistical analysis can aid in interpretation of the inventory assessments and group program data.

Pretest and Posttest Assessment

In measuring the effectiveness of your program in changing long standing parenting habits and beliefs, assessment is most often designed to gather information at the beginning and end of the program. It is important to use inventory assessment that has pretest and posttest versions which allow measurement of change without the bias of the practice effect.

Parenting Programs

Family Development Resources publishes only reliable and valid assessment tools that work in harmony with evidence-based parenting programs to ensure families meet and maintain a level of parenting competence that allow children to grow and flourish in nurturing environments.

Read about AAPI

The Benefits

The Benefits of Assessment

Measure the pre and post effectiveness of your parenting program.
Determine parenting strengths and areas that need improvement.
Increase the probability of funding with built-in pre-process-post assessment.

The Levels

Types of Assessment

Knowledge: What do parents and teens know of appropriate parenting practices?
Attitudes: What attitudes do parents and teens express about raising children?
History: What childhood history do parents and teens have that affects their parenting?

Inventory

The Levels of Assessment

Pre: Data collected prior to the formal start of your program to determine entry level capabilities.
Process: Data collected during the program to monitor ongoing growth and changes.
Post: Data collected at the completion of your program to determine the level of growth and future intervention needs of the family.

Prevention

Prevention based on Assessment

Prevention Parenting education at the pre-parent stage, the pre-natal stage, community awareness campaigns are implemented so all forms of child maltreatment can be prevented.
Intervention Families at this level are often referred to as “at-risk.” The goal of intervention is to provide families with the necessary knowledge, skills, resources and services to build upon their parenting strengths to prevent abuse and neglect.
Treatment At this level of prevention, families are in need of structured, long-term, family-based programs and services to replace old, existing hurting patterns of parenting with newer, nurturing parenting patterns.