engleski

Evidencing the value of parenting support as a policy and practice orientation: The case of ‘Growing Up Together’ in Croatia

This chapter focuses on the development of the universal and targeted parenting support programmes ‘Growing Up Together’ and ‘Growing Up Together Plus’, which aim to support positive parenting among parents of young children in Croatia. The aim of this chapter is threefold. Firstly, it outlines the Growing Up Together (GUT) and Growing Up Together Plus (GUTP) programmes ; secondly, it looks at the role of evaluation in the development and implementation of GUT ; and third, it highlights the value of pluralist approaches to generating evidence to support relevant, accessible, and effective parenting support in this context The first section of the chapter focuses on the concept of positive parenting and explores its background in the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child and how it is promoted by the Council of Europe (CoE). The second section describes a universal parenting support programme for parents of young children in Croatia: Growing Up Together (GUT) (see Pećnik and Starc, 2010) and a selective parenting support programme for parents of young children with disabilities: Growing Up Together Plus (GUT plus, or GUTP) (see Starc, 2014). They were developed in response to the lack of parenting support services, with the support of the UNICEF Office for Croatia, following the Council of Europe’s Recommendation Rec(2006)19 on policy to support positive parenting. The third section discusses the evaluation procedure which developed an evidence base for Growing Up Together and Growing Up Together Plus. The final section offers some conclusions and recommendations on the role of evaluation in the child’s-rights-based parenting support and pluralist approach to generating evidence.

Positive parenting, Parenting support programs, Evaluation,

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