The purpose of this study was to gain a fuller understanding of the sort of assistance, support, or education parents feel they need from school counselors in parenting adolescents. The research question examined was: What sort of assistance, support, or education do independent school parents feel they need from school counselors in raising adolescent children? The participants for this study were parents of middle school children attending an independent school located in an urban southern city. All parents of children attending the independent school were asked to respond to an online “needs assessment” survey asking parents to select parent education topics that are of interest to them. Parents participating in this phase of the study had an opportunity to volunteer for the next phase of the study, an online card sort activity. Parents who volunteered for the online card sort activity were sent a link to the online card sort activity where they took a list of parent education topics and arranged them into groups as they saw fit. Analysis of the results revealed nine themes, or categories of topics that are of interest to parents of middle school children: Parenting Skills, Adolescent Self-Management, Self-Awareness and Esteem, Academic Opportunities and Career Choices, Peer Relationships and Skills, Emotional Wellness, Physical Health and Wellness, Parent-Teacher/Staff Communication, and Technology Safety and Use. An informal concept map was created to visually represent the categories of parent education topics that emerged from the study. The results of this study can assist professional school counselors in designing parent education and consultation curriculum and interventions, and help ensure that school counselors better meet parents’ needs.

This column is a continuation in a series describing how collaboration among relevant stakeholders (e.g., parents, mental health professionals, community members) can enhance the implementation of effective practices to support children’s learning and development. In the previous column in the series, we described a variety of roles peers can have in the implementation of effective practices for students with and at risk for disabilities and strategies for developing and sustaining peer support programs in schools (Rowe et al., 2022). The purpose of this column is to describe different approaches to promote parent collaboration in the implementation of effective practices while addressing challenges that can undermine a collaborative process.

Children are vulnerable to the heatwaves, so to protect children from heat-related illness, taking preventative action during summer is necessary. To offer insights for the future design that supports child-parent collaborative prevention during heatwaves and promotes children’s independence, this project increases understanding of: Firstly, current practice of how children and their caregivers are involved in prevention. Secondly, identify challenges they face during the collaborative care process and strategies to develop children’s independence in self-care. This project conducted qualitative research to explore prevention experience from the caregivers’ aspect. Through analyzing data, this study identifies firstly cognitive ability and motivation as core factors in engaging children in collaborative care and prevention. Secondly, to develop preventive ability, children can promote care skills in family-based collaborative activities. Thirdly, to support children’s independence, smoothing the role transition of caregivers in child-parent collaboration is significant. This study offers design suggestions and discusses the opportunities for applying technology to contribute to children’s prevention and maintain care consistency.