About the program

Healthy & Safe: An Australian Parent Education Kit is a home‐based education resource tailored to the learning needs of parents with learning difficulties. It is designed to equip parents of young children with the knowledge and skills necessary for managing home dangers, accidents and childhood illness. 

Program structure

It is recommended that practitioners conduct at least 10-weekly 60 to 90 minute sessions in the parent’s home.

Trainees are provided with a kit that includes a program manual, a DVD and CD, lesson plans, modules, and parent workbooks covering 6 health and 13 home safety topics including:

• recognising when your child is sick
• calling the doctor
• using medicines safely
• identifying dangerous objects in the home
• developing a home safety plan.

Note: The program is to be delivered in the parent’s own home thus a portable screening device may be required. Capacity to print materials or to display program materials on-screen is necessary.

Evaluation and effectiveness

Healthy & Safe was adapted from the UCLA Parent–Child Health and Wellness Program and trialled by researchers at the University of Sydney. A randomised controlled trial was conducted from 1998-2001 with a sample of families where the primary carer of a child under 5 years had an intellectual disability (Llewellyn et al., 2003).

Results showed that the intervention improved parents’ ability to recognise home dangers, to identify precautions to deal with these dangers and resulted in a significant increase in the number of safety precautions parents implemented in their homes with all gains being maintained at 3 months post-intervention. Parents’ understanding and knowledge on a range of health and emergency topics also significantly increased and gains were maintained 3 months post-intervention. 

References

Llewellyn, G., McConnell, D., Honey, A., Mayes, R., & Russo, D. (2003). Promoting health and home safety for children of parents with intellectual disability: A randomized controlled trial. Research in Developmental Disabilities, 24(6), 405-431.