Personal Best

Personal Best, created by Judy Grossman, DrPH, OTR, is a group and home visiting intervention that promotes the parents’ reflective function, executive function skills, social support and self-efficacy. The aim is to improve parents’ adaptive coping skills in different roles (e.g., parent, partner, friend, worker/student, homemaker). A core feature is the process of building resilience through graded mastery experiences and mutual support.

Personal Best Group Curriculum

Personal Best is a 16-session group experience. The curriculum is organized into four modules: Stress and Coping, Parenting, Relationships, and Productive Activity. Each session includes discussion, activities and a centering exercise. The Personal Best group facilitators guide the discussions so parents can increase their knowledge; coping, communication, problem solving skills; and self-awareness about their parenting beliefs and personal struggles. The curriculum is also individualized as each parent identifies and works towards attaining very specific and measurable personal goals. The group format creates a sense of community as parents are given an opportunity to share their thoughts, feelings and beliefs with other parents.

Personal Best 16-Week Curriculum Table

MODULE TOPIC
Stress
  • Stress & Parenting
  • Sources of Stress
  • Stress Signals
  • Coping with Stress
Parenting
  • The Good Enough Parent
  • Personal Style: Temperament
  • Personal Style: Sensory Processing
  • Parenting Beliefs
Relationships
  • Stress and Social Support
  • Family History
  • Co-Parenting & Communication Skills
  • Communication Style
Productive Activity
  • Work/Homemaker Stress
  • Work & Family Life
  • Managing Your Money
  • Managing Your Time
  • Future Plans

In addition, Personal Best has been implemented as a professional development activity to promote staff mental health and increased coping, self-regulation and executive function skills. An added benefit is that staff also begin to appreciate the program goals, activities and benefits.

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Personal Best for Pregnant and Parenting Youth

The Personal Best curriculum has been expressly adapted to promote the life course development of pregnant and parenting youth (PPY). The Personal Best-PPY curriculum consists of 22 group sessions organized into four modules: Understanding My Life, Managing My Life, Understanding Myself and My Child, and Developing Life Skills. There are also individual sessions for goal setting.

Personal Best PPY has been recognized nationally by the Center for the Study of Social Policy as an exemplary initiative to help vulnerable youth.


Personal Best Home Visiting

The Personal Best Home Visiting Component serves to individualize the curriculum during home visits or in individual office sessions. The program objectives are streamlined to focus on two areas: (1) identifying stressors and practicing coping skills; and (2) identifying short-term, realistic and measurable goals, monitoring progress and recognizing any barriers to success. Goal setting is an important activity because success experiences create a sense of competence. Each session includes opportunities to practice communication and problem solving skills and to explore beliefs that may impede healthy parent-child and other relationships.

Resources

Click on titles to view worksheets (a separate window will open PDF):

Bright Beginnings

Personal Best