ABSTRACT
There are a wide variety of interventions designed to support parents rearing their children. In Portugal, there is no public or private agency responsible for registering, evaluating or monitoring the implementation of parenting interventions or for training parenting practitioners. The compilation and dissemination of already established or promising interventions in Portugal can provide a comprehensive analysis of their characteristics and the delivery ground in a real-world setting. The family workforce should have access to all the information regarding available interventions and their characteristics so they could make informed-based decisions about which intervention is most appropriate for their professional practice according to the specific needs of target families. A study was designed with the aim of characterizing the parenting support interventions existing in Portugal, namely: (1) what interventions exist and what is their institutional context? (2) what are the characteristics of the target population and the objectives of the parenting interventions? (3) what are the characteristics of the implementation and of the parenting intervention working force? (4) are the interventions framed in more comprehensive intervention projects? A 15-question survey was prepared to be delivered in digital format. Four national governmental and non-governmental agencies in the education and social sectors agreed to deliver this survey to their respective mailing lists, and 317 responses were obtained. In this chapter, we will analyze the results obtained and discuss several implications for services and family support policies.
