Promoting parent-child interaction and communication for healthy development of adolescents: Lessons from a pilot project in rural Bihar

There is a recognition in India’s policies and programs of the need to actively engage parents in enabling their adolescent children to make safe and healthy transitions to adulthood. The Population Council, in partnership with CEDPA India, initiated an intervention project for parents of adolescents aimed at developing and testing a program to foster closer relationships between parents and their adolescent children. The project was formulated on the hypothesis that a program intended to build parenting skills would enable parents to develop closer relationships with their adolescent children and communicate more effectively with them on various concerns, particularly those related to growing up and sexual and reproductive health matters, and thereby enable healthier development of adolescents in the long run. The intervention was implemented by CEDPA India in a rural setting in the state of Bihar. The Population Council evaluated the feasibility, acceptability, and effectiveness of the intervention on parent-child relations and communication. This report documents the intervention, examines the feasibility of implementing the model, and evaluates its effectiveness and acceptability