Circle of Security Parenting
The Circle of Security Parenting program (COSP) is a parenting program run by Telethon Speech & Hearing that aims to promote healthy parent-child attachment, which is hugely important for a child’s development.
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COSP is popular internationally and in Australia. In the last couple of years, a total of 115 parents completed the COSP as part of TSH playgroups and COSP was well-received by both parents and playgroup program staff.
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88% of the parents reported that they identify and respond to their child’s needs better following their participation in COSP, and
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100% of the parents believed that it is worthwhile to provide COSP in the future as part of the therapy playgroup.
Playgroup staff believe COSP has a positive impact on parents’ interactions with their children, hence benefitting their children’s communication, based on their observations and parent feedback.
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At TSH, we have a deep commitment to providing evidence-informed practice for best possible outcomes for children and families. We have looked at existing research on COSP systematically and what we have found is that there is very limited research that has examined the effectiveness of COSP on parents of children who have speech, language and hearing needs. We believe it is very important to research this area so that what we offer at TSH is informed by evidence.
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We have therefore commenced a research project to evaluate the effectiveness of COSP in TSH Playgroups.
We have obtained an approval to conduct this project by the University of Western Australia Human Ethics Office. We are conducting this research project in collaboration with Telethon Kids Institute.
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We are currently inviting parents in Talkabout Playgroup 2 to take part in this project. Many parents have already agreed to participate and we are very grateful for the high uptake and your support with the research. We plan to invite families in Chatterbox Wednesday playgroup in Term 3.
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If you have any queries regarding COSP or the research project, please contact Michelle Jamieson (Talkabout Family Liaison & Playgroup Coordinator, mjamieson@tsh.org.au; 9387 9846) or Dr Yuriko Kishida (Research & Evaluation Manager, ykishida@tsh.org.au; 9387 9862).