The Parenting Team identified reaching parents of middle school aged children as one of its goals in the most recent 5 year plan. Parents and children both experience the transition between childhood and adolescence as challenging. Many families experience a new vulnerability as children grow physically and begin shift their focus to a peer culture. There are few resources across the state for parents with children in this age group. The programming is inconsistent and varies in quality.

The WSUCE Parenting Team chose to introduce a model curriculum on a pilot basis to selected communities in Washington. The Strengthening Families Program for Parents and Youth 10-14 Years (SFP) was developed by Iowa State University Extension and by Iowa Project Family, a research group at Iowa State University. The program is science based and has an exemplary research base that has won it recognition as an exemplary program from several federal agencies. It is recommended on the national level by the U.S. Department of Education, the Center for Prevention of Substance Abuse, and the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. The SFP is a seven week course that has sessions for parents, youth , and for the family unit.

The WSUCE Parenting Team in cooperation with the 4-H Youth Development Program sponsored a training in December 1998. Teams from Jefferson, Spokane, and Thurston Counties that had been recruited to pilot the program completed the training conducted by the program's developer, Dr. Virginia Molgaard of Iowa State University Extension.

Each county has followed a different course in implementing the program. Jefferson County Cooperative Extension supported a community group to attend the training and worked with their team to assist the team in implementing the program in Port Townsend during the summer months. Other agencies also supported the effort. A group of seven families participated and six completed the program. The SFP was selected by Olympic ESD as a model program in a three year demonstration grant, and one of the facilitators trained in the original group has been hired by the ESD and is leading the effort to implement the program widely in Jefferson County. Chris Koehler, Parenting Team member, and Spokane County Cooperative Extension staff wrote a successful grant to Spokane County Human Services/Alcohol and Drug Prevention Program to fund a two year effort of implementing the program. Those classes are underway at the end of 1999. Drew Betz, Parenting Team member, worked with her partner, the ESD 113 Student Assistance Program to teach a pilot series in late spring. Five families participated and the class ended after the 5th session due to family illness and dropouts due to baseball season. A great deal was learned about timing!

ESD 113 housed in Olympia has been a key partner in the efforts to implement the program both locally and statewide. Rob Vincent, director of the Student Assistance Program at ESD 113, attended the initial training. He was convinced of the program's promise and set up a two facilitator training sessions in 2000. He has involved his peers at other ESD student assistance programs in the state. ESD 113 organized a training of trainers program that will take place at the January and July, 2000, trainings. Two of the trainers are members of the Parenting Team. Staff at ESD 113 are being trained and will cooperate WSUCE Parenting Team member Betz to implement the program in Thurston County in 2000.

The Parenting Team members who will become trainers intend to offer training for other WSUCE personnel who are interested inusing the program in their area in 2000.