Report No. 020-12

TO: Chair and Members of the Board of Health
FROM: Graham L. Pollett, MD, FRCPC, Medical Officer of Health
DATE: 2012 February 16

Parenting Your Teenager Videos

Recommendation

It is recommended that Report No. 020-12 re Parenting Your Teenager Videos be received for information.

Background

The 2008 Ontario Public Health Standards employs a mandate for health units to promote positive parenting through a comprehensive, health promotion approach. In 2009, initiatives dealing with the parenting of teens were identified as a gap in this community. Parenting a teenager can be very challenging. There are many external influences that impact both parents and teens including peer pressure, social media, drugs, rapid paced technology and even the economy.  Parents of teens often find it challenging to balance promoting their teen’s independence and monitoring and disciplining them.  Teenagers are very involved with their peers at this developmental stage of life.  Despite this, parents need to know that their teens do listen to them and consider them to be big influencers in their lives.

Specifically, parents have the power to create positive home environments where their children are comfortable disclosing information about the risky decisions they are facing in their daily lives. Many parents of teens are often hesitant to ask for help. They are often not connected to their teen’s school and therefore less able to obtain support from other parents or school staff.  Evidence shows that parents of teens are most likely to get their information from the internet and their peers. Utilizing social media techniques afford an opportunity to reach this target group, members of which are increasingly moving away from traditional communication methodologies like television and print media. 

Rationale

A 2011 survey administered by the Young Adult Team to parents of teens identified ways parents would like to receive information. In order of preference these are: the internet, friends, community professionals, school events and newsletters.  This survey also identified the topics that parents were most interested in learning as follows: the teen brain, drugs and alcohol, positive discipline, sexuality and mental health issues.  Considering the information obtained from the parents, the Young Adult Team decided to create evidence-based YouTube videos for parents of teenagers which could be accessed through the internet.

Production of Parenting Your Teen Videos

In late fall 2010, work began on the first series of videos which focused on the developmental challenges that teens face and ways parents can help teens through this life stage.  The Young Adult Team and the Manager of Communications worked with Keyframe Communications Inc. to develop this first series of videos.  The series of 12-13 minute videos were scripted, filmed and edited in December 2010.  After receiving feedback, it was decided to adapt these videos to seven 2-3 minute subject specific videos in order to have better viewing uptake. In addition, six 2-3 minute videos on preventing substance misuse among adolescents were produced in December 2011 with assistance from the Healthy Communities Team.  The scripts for these videos were reviewed by staff from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health and Addiction Services Thames Valley.

A total of 13 parenting videos are now available on the Health Unit website as well as on YouTube.  A distribution plan for the videos is being developed so parents can be connected to the online resource.  The distribution plan includes providing community partners with the web link so they can share it with their clients as well as sharing it with public libraries, community centres, workplaces, malls, school boards and individual schools and events where parents of teens may convene.  It is also planned to create a Facebook advertisement directed at this demographic group.  Analysis of the You Tube and Facebook statistics and comments will be done as a form of evaluation.  A community launch of the videos is planned for the spring.  These videos will be an important supplement to the upcoming Triple P Parenting Your Teenager seminars that staff will be offering in the community and schools in the near future.  The videos will also be a valuable resource for those parents, educators and community agencies who are unable to participate in the workshops.

Conclusion

Parents of teens need and want information so they can raise healthy, caring, responsible and independent adults. Allowing parents to view the Parenting Your Teenager videos online is convenient and provides them with valuable, evidence based information. It also allows them to access this information in the comfort of their own homes. As the Health Unit ventures into more online communication methods, staff will explore other social media techniques, such as blogging, in order to engage and provide support to parents of adolescents.

This report was prepared by Ms. Jane Berardini and Mr. Graham Smith, Public Health Nurses, Young Adult Team and Ms. Christine Preece, Manager, Young Adult Team, Family Health Services.

Graham L. Pollett, MD, FRCPC
Medical Officer of Health

This report addresses the following requirement(s) of the Ontario Public Health Standards:
Chronic Disease and Injuries Program Standard, 3, 4, 11, 12 and Child Health, 5, 6, 7, 8.