Curriculum

Parenting Inside Out (PIO) is an evidence-based, cognitive-behavioral parent management skills training program created for incarcerated parents through a six-year collaboration of scientists, policy makers, practitioners, and instructional designers. Both the information in the program and the way that information is presented were informed by knowledge derived from research and practice.

At the core of Parenting Inside Out is the Parent Management Training (PMT) curriculum, which appears on the “best practice” lists of: the American Psychological Assoc., the US Department of Health & Human Services, and the Office of Victims of Crime, the US Department of Justice. PMT includes communication, problem solving, monitoring, positive reinforcement and non-violent discipline techniques. With input from inmates and their families, researchers built upon the PMT curriculum to make it effective within the context and restrictions of parents and families involved in the justice system.

 

PIO addresses the unique situation and issues of systems involved parents.

  • Is outcomes-based
  • Is learner-centered
  • Uses social learning theory to teach cooperation and problem solving in the context of learning parenting skills
  • Helps parents promote healthy child adjustment, prevent child problem behavior, and interrupt the cycle of intergenerational criminality

Parents develop and refine social interactional skills and citizenship behaviors they can use in all aspects of their lives and that will help them guide their children toward becoming positive, constructive adults.

One of the central activities in the prison currculum is the adoption of a bear. Adopting a bear, for whom the parent is responsibile 24/7, gives parents the opportunity to practice their parenting skills even though they are not with their children. One father describes it this way:

The PIO program gives parents a way of navigating life that uses healthy, pro-social skills to interact with children, partners, co-parents, officials, friends and family.