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How was the Take 3 Programme Developed?

Take 3 has a clear and logical theoretical framework but is also thoroughly grounded in experience, having been developed over an eight year period of ‘experimental’ usage - a time of key learning about what worked effectively to support and empower parents of teenagers. Feedback from parents and facilitators played a vital role in its development and the author has worked as a parenting practitioner for nearly 20 years.

Take 3 was originally created in Oxfordshire in 2000 to support parents of at-risk or vulnerable young people whose challenging behaviour was causing problems for the parents and/or the community. At the time the author was working for the Youth Offending Team and there was a gap in the market for suitable parenting course materials. When first used in Oxfordshire the course was called ‘the Oxfordshire Parent-Talk Programme’. It was renamed Take 3* as part of the process of preparing it for publication.

After eight years of extensive usage and revision it was finally published in 2008 by the Trust for the Study of Adolescence (later called Young People in Focus).

Public money is limited and commissioners want to buy in a programme that ‘works’; that has a sufficient evidence base to ensure that it will deliver specific results for their families. Take 3 was refined to focus specifically on ‘what works’ and has been positively evaluated on a number of occasions.

The Programme is now delivered successfully throughout the UK and overseas, in rural areas as well as large cities.

Research and Evaluation >>

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History & Development of Take 3

* ‘Take 3’ - Why the Name?

The Programme was named Take 3 for two reasons:

Firstly, we believe that the core elements of successful parenting are threefold: to nurture young people and to provide them with structure; neither of these will work without the other, and a balance is needed between the two. However parents will find it hard to implement these effectively unless they are valuing themselves and taking care of themselves: so the third core requisite, which actually underpins the other two, is self-care.

The second meaning of Take 3 refers to a breathing technique that we introduce to help parents stay calm. In the course we teach parents a way of ‘belly’ breathing, which relaxes the body and calms the mind, with the aim that they remember to use this technique several times a day as a way to respond to stress and anxiety and deal more effectively with challenging situations.

We really wanted a programme that

would work well with parents of teenagers whose behaviour was quite challenging, who were not going to school, who were offending or at risk of offending… who were vulnerable in one way or another and so this programme was developed with these parents in mind.

KATHT PETO

PARENTING DEVELOPMENT MANAGER, OXFORDSHIRE