History

The Topfer Family Foundation initiated the planning process that led to the creation of Positive Parenting DuPage in April of 2004. The goal of this planning process was to address child abuse prevention by emphasizing positive parenting. This intensive planning process involved the gathering of statistical information on early childhood and parenting services in DuPage and the review of current research and innovative programming for building a county-wide infrastructure. From this background work, combined with strong professional knowledge of the DuPage community, the planning team finalized the outcomes, organizational structure and project components of Positive. The outcomes are as follows:

Ultimate Outcomes:

• Increase effective parenting behaviors
• Increase indicators of child health and well-being
• Increase indicators of community empowerment for parenting and provision of services.
• Decrease in indicators of child-maltreatment

Intermediate Outcomes:

• Increased parent knowledge of child development and parenting issues
• Increase parent/caregiver and staff use of community resources
• Increase number of at risk families effectively managed
• Increase quality of parent support system