Creating family–school bridges through parenting skills. A collaborative learning experience

Abstract

The objective of this article is twofold: on the one hand, to demonstrate the importance of situated learning, through the experience of an e-community of practice; and, on the other hand, to evaluate the results of an experience of parenting support for families from the school environment. This collaborative article is based on the reflections of social workers of the psychoeducational counseling teams of the Department of Education of the Generalitat de Catalunya on the experiences carried out during the 2015-2016 academic year. Firstly, they attended the training activity and, secondly, they took part in the e-community of practice. The article analyzes the implementation at school of the Parenting Skills Development Program for families (PHP) of the Public Health Agency of Barcelona, in three ways: the promotion of positive parenting, the relationship between the family and the school, and the development of the professional objectives of social workers. The results indicate, on the one hand, that, after the experience of cooperative learning, the level of satisfaction is high. On the other hand, the experience of carrying out the PHP has meant an improvement in the parenting skills of families, a resource for increasing family-school bonds and the possibility of working from the prevention in counselling and support to the families and educational centres.