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Program overview

The PuP program is designed for families in which there are many difficult life circumstances that impact on family functioning. Such problems may include mental health challenges including trauma, substance misuse, family conflict and severe financial stress. The program is individually tailored to suit each family. Parents are given their own Parent Workbook. For many parents, this becomes a personal journal documenting their strengths and achievements. The PuP program can be delivered in families’ homes, community settings, residential treatment facilities or a combination of any of these.

Program Logic 

The overarching aim of the PuP program is to help children have optimal development. This can be supported by helping parents facing adversity develop positive and secure relationships with their children. Within this strength-based approach, the family environment becomes more nurturing, and less conflictual, and both parents and children learn strategies to identify and manage their emotions. 

Theory of change: The PuP program aims to support the optimal development of children by an enhancement of self-regulation. The underlying program logic builds on decades of research linking the capacity for self-regulation, underpinned by improvements in executive functioning, to child characteristics and the broader family ecology. Child outcome is directly influenced by the quality of caregiving that includes supporting a child to feel safe and nurtured. In order to achieve these goals, parents and caregivers need to be able to manage their own emotional state and have personal resources that allow them to actively problem solve in situations of extreme stress. Social determinants of health impact on parental capacity and can be addressed, in part, by enhancement of connection to family, community, culture and spirituality.