Affirming diversity: Multicultural collaboration to deliver the Incredible Years (IY) Programmes to promote children’s wellbeing
Incredible Years Program Developer Carolyn Webster-Stratton, PhD, was recently a keynote speaker at The International Congress on Evidence-based Parenting Support (I-CEPS), which was held on 6-8 June, 2023.
Carolyn spoke on the topic of promoting the cultural sensitivity of IY delivery in her presentation, 40 Incredible Years: Multicultural Collaboration to Deliver the Incredible Years Programs to Promote Children’s Well-being.
In her presentation, Carolyn began with an overview of Incredible Years program delivery, with an emphasis on the concept of affirming diversity. She summarized the criteria for being considered an evidence-based program and reviewed the research outcomes for the IY parent, teacher and child programs. She highlighted the programs’ impact on children’s wellbeing in terms of promoting their social skills, emotional literacy, resilience, language development, and school readiness skills.
Then, Carolyn discussed what is encompassed in transporting Incredible Years evidence-based programs to different cultural groups and countries, including assuring high-quality translations. The presentation also provided an overview of the important components of IY program implementation and how implementation is tailored with fidelity to different cultural groups. In the address, Carolyn showed some recently developed new vignettes of families representing diverse cultural backgrounds, who had participated in IY groups.
The Incredible Years programs have been delivered in more than 24 countries, in 10 languages. Carolyn Webster-Stratton, MS, MPH, PhD, has conducted more than a dozen Randomized Control Trials (RCTs) to evaluate the effectiveness of programs for promoting social and emotional competence, school readiness skills and preventing conduct problems in high-risk populations. She has also evaluated teacher, parent and child treatment programs for children diagnosed with oppositional defiant disorder, conduct disorder and ADHD. Dr. Webster-Stratton has published numerous scientific articles and chapters as well as books for parents, teachers, therapists and children.
