Become a Tools for Your Child’s Success Community
Interested in becoming a Tools for Your Child’s Success community? Contact us.
Learn more about becoming a Tools for Your Child’s Success Community
“I just wish that I would have had this since the beginning, you know? It’s kind of like that book on how to be a parent.” – Montana ParentWhat is Tools for Your Child’s Success?
Tools for Your Child’s Success is a project of the Center for Health and Safety Culture at Montana State University to promote the healthy mental, emotional, and behavioral development of children by actively growing their social and emotional skills like self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making.
On the website, parents and those in a parenting role learn about strategies to thoughtfully address challenges with their children while at the same time growing social and emotional skills, increasing wellbeing, and reducing risky behaviors.
The website includes tools that are organized developmentally by the age of the child. At the core of each of the tools is the 5-step intentional parenting process that is grounded in learning theory, based on evidence about intentional communication, and informed by leading scholars knowledgeable about social and emotional skills.
Parents and those in a parenting role can select an age-specific tool to address their parenting challenge. By reading or listening to an audio version of the tool, parents learn about and utilize the process to address their parenting challenge. With use of the 5-step parenting process, parents become more comfortable and confident applying the process to other issues. With repeated engagement in the 5-step parenting process, social and emotional skills increase in both parents and children. Over time, improved social and emotional skills in children promote wellbeing and reduce risky behaviors (such as underage drinking).
“Once you learn the tool, you can apply it to anything.” – Montana Parent
What does becoming a Tools for Your Child’s Success community mean?
Becoming a Tools for Your Child’s Success community builds on the strengths that already exist in your community.
As a Tools for Your Child’s Success community, you have an opportunity to create a personalized website that reflects your unique culture. The website’s “look and feel” are designed to resonate with your parents in your community. This includes a unique name, a unique website URL, localized images and localized promotional media (video, radio, and print). In addition, you can select which tools and I Want to Know More resources are featured on your homepage.
As a Tools for Your Child’s Success community you also have the opportunity to support the development of new tools and I Want to Know More resources to achieve your local goals, while also contributing to these nationwide resources.
Why does my community need Tools for Your Child’s Success?
There is growing concern about the social, emotional, and behavioral health of youth and adults.
Depression is increasing among youth, and suicide is a leading cause of death among youth and young adults.
Decades of research has shown that growing social and emotional skills like self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making
- reduces the onset and progression of substance misuse and its related problems (such as underage drinking and the misuse of other drugs);
- prevents mental, emotional, and behavioral disorders including depression, anxiety, and substance use disorders;
- reduces negative outcomes such as dropping out of school, poor education attainment, unemployment, suicide, and others; and
- leads to better workplace outcomes throughout life.
It advances community and state prevention efforts by:
- supporting healthy mental, emotional, and behavioral health with one strategy;
- reaching parents in a meaningful way that appeals to them;
- addressing risky behaviors such as underage drinking and the misuse of other drugs; and
- integrating with and expanding the efforts already occurring within schools and workplaces.
It is an efficient use of financial resources and aligns with funding requirements and national priorities like:
- The Drug-Free Communities Support program
- The Strategic Prevention Framework – Partnerships for Success program
- Healthy People 2030
“Existing research demonstrates that growing social and emotional skills can protect against alcohol and drug use and promote academic success.” - National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine
Growing social and emotional skills is an evidence-based approach to foster healthy mental, emotional, and behavioral development in children and youth. - National Drug Control Strategy
“A recent analysis found that the intervention not only helped the children who received the initial social and emotional skills training, but their children benefited as well. These offspring had less substance use, fewer behavioral issues, and better academic skills than the children whose parents had not received the training.”
Does it work? Case Study: ParentingMontana.org
In 2019, the Center for Health and Safety Culture at Montana State University created ParentingMontana.org in partnership with the Montana Department of Health and Human Services with funding from SAHMHSA’s Partnership for Success (PFS), prevention block grants, and early childhood development grants. This summary report presents findings from a multi-year mixed methods evaluation of ParentingMontana.org. The goal of this evaluation was to understand the value of the website and the utility of ParentingMontana.org’s 5-step intentional parenting process. Some findings…- Website users and stakeholders rated the website as useful, trustworthy, and they would recommend it to parents.
- The 5-step parenting process helped parents overcome their parenting problems.
- Parents reported improved interactions with their children as a result of the 5-step parenting process.
- Parents continued using the process to address parenting challenges for over a year.
- Parents improved their relationship quality and communication with their children, and they became more comfortable with the process and made progress on their challenge.
- Repeated engagement with the 5-step parenting process was associated with improvements in the social and emotional skills of parents and children. In addition, family flourishing and family resilience scales increased.