Pre-Training Self-Study
This is material that prospective IY trainees (you) can find on our web site that will help prepare you to get the most value out of your training workshop in the Incredible Years Programs. The purpose of these recommended references is to give you a general overview of the methods and processes embedded in the Incredible Years collaborative approach. You may elect to do this as a self-study model prior to the workshop, or to contract with an IY mentor to go through this together in a collaborative and interactive way. One other option would be for potential IY trainees to work with an IY mentor after studying this material. This would allow you to ask questions and discuss what you have read and watched. Group leaders who want to lead the program with families are still required to attend a complete Incredible Years group leader training to be eligible for accreditation in the program.
This self-study outline is also useful for program managers or administrators who want to
understand the Incredible Years programs but don’t want to attend a complete Incredible Years group leader training. Administrators should also view the For Administrators page of our website for additional information on getting started with Incredible Years programs.
Download a printable version of this outline here:
Pre-Training Self-Study of IY Programs for Group Leader Trainees and Administrators
View preview training videos: Shows actual examples of parent, child, and teacher groups representing a variety of cultural backgrounds. Both parent and teacher previews overview the topics covered in the program as well as how group leaders facilitate discussions, mediate vignettes and set up role play practices. The child program preview shows sample small group treatment and classroom prevention sessions and overviews the ways that group leaders use puppets, circle time, and small group activities to teach the program content to children. There is also a 15-minute overview covering the highlights of all three programs: parent, teacher and child (5 min per program).
Preview of the Attentive Parenting Program
Preview of the Child Programs Preview of the Teacher ProgramView slide shows: PowerPoint presentations for IY parent, teacher, and child programs include summaries of the content and goals for the different programs, a summary of research background, methods and processes of delivery as well as the logistics of setting up groups with day care and food.
View program content and objectives: Overview of the content and objectives for the Incredible Years® Program Series. View content and objectives for each program.
Program Name: Babies Program (Ages 0-12 months)
Parents and Babies Program Content and ObjectivesGoals: Building Relationships and Attachments
• Getting to know your baby (0-3 months)
• Babies as intelligent learners/speaking “parent-ese” (3-6 months)
• Providing physical, tactile & visual stimulation
• Parents learning to read babies’ minds and be responsive
• Understanding how to help babies feel loved, secure and safe
• Gaining Support
• Babies’ emerging sense of self (6-12 months)
Program Name: Toddlers Program (Ages 1-3)
Toddler Program Content and ObjectivesGoals: Promoting Children’s Social Development
• Child-directed play promotes positive relationships
• Promoting toddler’s language with descriptive commenting
• Social and emotional coaching
• Positive attention, praise and encouragement
• Handling separations and reunions
• Setting developmentally appropriate limits
• Using distractions, redirections & ignore effectively to handle misbehavior
Program Name: Autism Spectrum and Language Delays (Ages 2-5 years)
Autism Program Content and ObjectivesGoals of the Program
• Child-Directed Narrated Play Promotes Positive Relationships
• Pre-Academic and Persistence Coaching Promotes Language Development and School Readiness
• Social Coaching Promotes Friendship Skills
• Emotion Coaching Promotes Emotional Literacy
• Pretend Play Promotes Empathy and Social Skills
• Promoting Children’s Self-Regulation Skills
• Using Praise and Rewards to Motivate Children
• Limit Setting and Behavior Management
Program Name: Helping Preschool Children with Autism: Teachers & Parents as Partners (Ages 2–5 years)
Helping Preschool Children with Autism: Teachers & Parents as Partners Content and ObjectivesTopics
• Language Development
• Social Interactions
• Emotion Literacy and Self-Regulation
Program Name: Preschool Basic Program (Ages 3-6)
Preschool Basic Program Content and ObjectivesGoals: Promoting Children’s Social and Emotional Development
and School Readiness
• Child directed play skills to promote positive relationships
• Academic & persistence coaching to promote school readiness
• Social & emotional coaching
• Positive attention, praise & incentives to promote cooperative behavior
• Establishing rules and predictable routines
• Effective limit setting
• Positive discipline and managing misbehavior
• Helping children learn to calm down & self-regulate
• Teaching children time out
• Teaching children beginning problem solving steps through stories and games
Program Name: School Age Basic Program (Ages 6-12)
School Age Basic Program Content and ObjectivesGoals: Encouraging Children’s Sense of Responsibility and Supporting Children’s School Learning
• The importance of parental attention and special time with children
• Academic, persistence, emotion & social coaching
• Effective praise and encouragement
• Using incentives to motivate children
• Household rules, responsibilities, and routines
• Monitoring children’s whereabouts
• Clear and respectful limit setting
• Ignoring misbehavior
• Using time out for destructive behavior & extreme oppositional behavior
• Imposing logical & natural consequences
• Promoting reading skills
• Dealing with children’s discouragement
• Fostering good learning habits and routines
• Parent involvement with teachers
Program Name: Teacher Classroom Management Program (ages 3-8)
Teacher Classroom Management Content and ObjectivesGoals: Promote teacher’s proactive classroom management skills to enhance learning
• Building positive relationships with students
• Preventing behavior problems – the proactive teacher
• Importance of teacher attention, coaching and praise
• Motivating children through incentives
• Managing misbehavior through ignoring, redirection and consequences
• Teaching children emotional regulation, social skills and problem solving
Program Name: Incredible Beginnings™ Program (ages 1-5)
Incredible Beginnings™ Content and ObjectivesGoals of the program
• Building positive relationships with toddlers and managing separation anxiety
• Promoting language development in toddlers and preschoolers
• Social coaching with toddlers and preschoolers
• Emotion coaching with toddlers and preschoolers
• The proactive teacher
• Positive behavior management for toddlers and preschoolers
There is a treatment program as well as a prevention program. Programs are purchased separately.
Program Name: Classroom Dinosaur Curriculum (Prevention) (ages 3-8)
Program Name: Small Group Dinosaur Curriculum (Treatment) (ages 4-8)
Content and Objectives of the Dina Child ProgramsGoals: Promote Children’s Social Skills, Self-Regulation, and
Classroom Behavior
• Making friends and learning school rules
• Understanding examples of feelings
• Wally teaches problem-solving steps
• Tiny Turtle teaches how to self-regulate and manage anger
• Dina teaches how to do your best in school (e.g., cooperation, listening, quiet hand up, stop-look-think-check)
• Molly teaches how to be friendly (waiting, sharing, helping, taking turns, teamwork)
• Molly explains how to talk with friends (suggestions, apologize, compliment, forgiveness)
View logic models: Logic models for Parent, Teacher, and Child Incredible Years
programs include details of program goals, individual program modalities, targeted risk and protective factors, proximal and distal outcome variables.
View Fact Sheets about programs: Include costs, brief program descriptions, summary of research, staffing requirements, professional training and articles for each IY program.
View video of program developer: Dr. Carolyn Webster-Stratton answers questions from group leaders about how the group leader training works; what population the program works with; support needed for group leaders beyond the 3-day training workshop; the rationale for mediated video vignettes; the number of required sessions; how to keep mandated families coming; how to choose vignettes to show; why the collaborative process is essential, and why role places are important to parents’ learning.
Question 1: How does the group leader training work?
Question 2: What population does the program work with?
Question 3: What training and support is needed beyond the 3-day training workshop?
Question 4: What is the difference between the old and the updated parent programs?
Question 5: What is the rationale for the use of mediated video vignettes and experiential learning?
Question 6: Can the number of sessions be reduced?
Question 7: How does the program work with non-English speaking populations?
Question 8: How does the IY program work with families with varying literacy skills?
Question 9: How do I keep mandated families coming each week?
Question 10: How do I choose which vignettes to show families?
Question 11: Why do you use a collaborative training approach?
Question 12: Should foster parents be involved in the training for child welfare referred parents?
Question 13: Why are role play practices important to parents’ learning?
View video interviews regarding experiences with the programs: Participants, group leaders, and mentors discuss their experiences being part of the Incredible Years group programs.
#1 How does the Incredible Years® Parent Program work for Head Start families?
#2 What do parents learn about the foundation of the Parent Program?
#3 What do parents have to say about their experiences with the Incredible Years® Parent Program?
#4 What do parents learn about discipline?
#5 What methods do Incredible Years® Group Leaders use to work with parents?
#6 What are the outcomes of Incredible Years® Parenting Groups?
#7 Does the Incredible Years® Parenting Program work with other cultures?
#1 Introduction to The Incredible Years® Dinosaur School Child Training Program
#2 Content of The Incredible Years® Dinosaur School Child Training Program
#3 Teacher Experiences with the Classroom Dinosaur School Child Program
#4 Therapist and Parent Experiences with the Small Group Dina Curriculum
#5 Trainer Reflections About Training Teachers & Therapists to Implement the Child Program(s)
#6 Research with The Incredible Years® Dinosaur School Child Training Program
#7 Supporting Implementation of IY Child Programs with Fidelity
Information about Incredible Years® Teacher Classroom Management Program
Foundation of the Incredible Years® Teaching Pyramid®
Managing Classroom Misbehavior
Teacher Experiences Learning the Program
Trainer Experiences Working with Teachers
The Bedrock of Children’s Academic Learning
Research Regarding the Program
Dissemination, Certification and Need for Ongoing Support and Monitoring
View sample video vignettes: On the web site there are sample vignettes from each of the individual programs. Go to the program you are interested in (Baby, Toddler, Preschool, School Age, etc.) and look at the section labelled, “Watch video clips from the curriculum”. Here you will also find implementation cost information for the various programs.
www.incredibleyears.com/programs/
View Experts in Action leading parent groups and delivering group leader workshops:
Experts in Action: Parenting Groups are an opportunity to see program developer Carolyn Webster-Stratton and certified Incredible Years trainers lead multi-cultural parenting classes. The Experts in Action program videos are available for the Baby Parenting Program as well.
Experts in Action: Group Leader Training videos show Carolyn delivering the group leader workshop. Experts in Action: Group Leader Training for the Autism Spectrum and Language Delays programs is also available.
Group leaders and clinicians who have received the initial training will find these supplemental videos an invaluable resource for furthering their group leadership skills.
More information on our Experts in Action Programs available on our website.
Experts in Action for our child programs show program developer Carolyn Webster-Stratton and Incredible Years trainers delivering the child program classes. More information on the Experts in Action for child programs can be found on web site.
Web site library: The Incredible Years library provides 40 years of comprehensive IY
research by the developer and other international researchers. Articles can be searched by author’s last name or a topic. Most of these articles can be downloaded or include an abstract.
Webster-Stratton, C. (2016). The Incredible Years series: a developmental approach. In Family-Based Prevention Programs for Children and Adolescents: Theory, Research, and Large-Scale Dissemination (pp. 42-67). M. Van Ryzin, K. Kumpfer, G. Fosco, & M. Greenberg, Editors. New York, NY: Psychology Press. https://incredibleyears.com/article/the-incredible-years-series-a-developmental-approach/
Webster-Stratton, C., & Reid, M. J. (2017). The Incredible Years Parents, Teachers and Children Training Series: A multifaceted treatment approach for young children with conduct problems. In J. Weisz & A. Kazdin (Eds.), Evidence-based psychotherapies for children and adolescents, 3rd edition. New York: Guilford Publications. https://incredibleyears.com/article/the-incredible-years-parents-teachers-and-children-training-series-a-multifaceted-treatment-approach-for-young-children/
Webster-Stratton, C., & Bywater, T. (2019). The Incredible Years® series: An internationally evidenced multi-modal approach to enhancing child outcomes. In B. Fiese, M. Whisman, M. Celano, K. Deater-Deckard, and E. Jouriles (Eds.), APA Handbook of Contemporary Family Psychology. https://incredibleyears.com/article/the-incredible-years%ef%83%a2-series-an-internationally-evidenced-multi-modal-approach-to-enhancing-child-outcomes/
Other Key Reading: Parents, teachers and group leaders all have their own IncredibleYears texts. It is highly recommended that you start reading these in advance of the training.
The Incredible Years: A Trouble-Shooting Guide for Parents of Children Aged 3-8 Years (3rd Edition). The 3rd edition of this book for parents has been revised to include new and expanded chapters on coaching (academic, persistence, social and emotion coaching), plus new chapters on social media, screen time, and promoting a healthy lifestyle. This is an amazing book that covers research-based parenting strategies for all families. Positive discipline techniques are described in detail illustrated with true-to-life examples to help parents prevent behavior problems and promote their children’s social and emotional competence. Learn more here
Collaborating with Parents to Reduce Children’s Behavior Problems: A book for Therapists Using the Incredible Years Programs. This important book has a unique approach with two areas of focus. First, it allows parents to tell their stories: sharing what it is like to have a “problem” child as well as the long and painful route to finding support and recovery through parent and child training. The book also elucidates in detail the “collaborative process” of therapists working together with families. This process combines the knowledge and expertise of the clinician with the unique strengths, perspectives, culture and goals of parents. Learn more here
Incredible Teachers: Nurturing Children’s Social, Emotional, and Academic Competence. This book is the text for teachers and child care providers using the Incredible Years Teacher Classroom Management Program and the Child Dinosaur Emotional, Social and Problem Solving Curriculum. It can be useful as a stand-alone guide for teachers and caregivers. The book presents a variety of creative classroom management strategies for teachers to use to meet children’s developmental milestones and teach emotional literacy, friendship skills, self-regulation and problem solving skills. Learn more here
Experts in Action: Parent Group Leader Workshop Training Samples
These 8 DVDs (13 hours 24 minutes) are an opportunity for group leaders who are implementing the Incredible Years Parenting Program to see the developer discuss her theory and rationale for the collaborative methods and processes underlying the successful group delivery of this program. The DVD clips show Carolyn Webster-Stratton modeling how to mediate video vignettes, do benefits/barriers exercises, buddy buzzes, pull out principles, and set up role play practices. She explains how to work collaboratively with parents and tailor the program to the specific population being addressed so that it is meaningful and targeted at their goals. The DVDs are also for IY peer coaches in their work with new group leaders, IY mentors for review and study of their training workshops, and administrators and clinicians interested in the methods and content of the Incredible Years programs. View full description and view video clips from this program
Materials needed for online Parent Training: