It’s simple. Parenting isn’t easy.
Eight different local agencies were able to come together Thursday and Friday at the Carter County Drug Prevention Coalition in downtown Elizabethton to work through a specialized program, Triple P Parenting, to gather ideas and schedule seminars as a way to help promote parenting tips and ideas for expecting parents or families with preteen children.
“Triple P is a program that we think will be very beneficial to our community,” said Jilian Reece, Carter County Drug Prevention Coalition director. “We’re so happy to have eight different agencies represented in Carter County so that we can all go back to the populations we serve and work with families to promote positive parenting strategies.”
Agencies that took part in the two-day class include CCDP, the Boys and Girls Club of Elizabethton/Carter County, East Tennessee State University, Elizabethton Housing and Development Agency, Elizabethton/Carter County Public Library, Red Legacy Recovery, Watauga Recovery Center and the Carter County School System.
Triple P, which stands for Positive Parenting Program, is an internationally utilized parenting and family support system to help prevent and treat and behavioral and emotional problems with children and teenagers.
“Parenting is hard. I’m a parent, a lot of folks in this room are parents. Every parent needs help sometimes. There are behavioral issues to deal with, and that doesn’t make someone a bad parent. What we do with Triple P is give people an opportunity to come together and talk about ways to make things easier on families,” said Katy Allen, Triple P trainer who assisted with the two-day affair.
According to the organization’s website, Triple P “draws on social learning, cognitive behavioral and development theory as well as research into risk factors associated with the development of social and behavioral problems in children.”
And with such a broad reach across the globe, Allen said she enjoyed seeing the local agencies come together for the program.
“It’s awesome,” Allen said with a smile. “It is awesome to see they’re already collaborating and already working on planning the first seminar series. It’s great to see everyone work together. That definitely doesn’t happen in every community, so we’re excited to see what’s going on in Carter County.”
Friday’s session gave the agencies a way to start mapping out different seminars to provide to the public.
With Triple P broken up into five different sections, Carter County will offer the first round of workshops during the month of July for the first step of the program.
Dates and locations for the workshops include:
• July 13 – Boys and Girls Club of Elizabethton/Carter County
• July 20 – Elizabethton/Carter County Public Library
• July 27 – Elizabethton Housing and Development Agency
Each seminar will last from 6 to 7:30 p.m. and be free to attendees. Dinner and free childcare will be provided for each event.
Reece added that she hopes to see the program grow in the area with support from the community and hopes to see it grow more within the region over the next two years.