The Rochester Area Parent Program (RAPP) began through a collaboration of non-profit agencies that identified a need for parent education in our community.  RAPP chose an established, evidence-based program, The Chicago Parent Program (CPP), because it is designed with and for parents to be culturally and contextually relevant for African American and Latino families with young children in low income, urban communities (Gross et al, 2014, http://chicagoparentprogram.org/). Research demonstrates that CPP participation leads to significant reductions in children's behavioral problems; increases in parents’ confidence, knowledge, and abilities to make a difference in their child’s life; decreases in parent use of corporal punishment; and increases in parent consistency with appropriate discipline practices.  

In March 2020 RAPP, along with much of the world, came to a screeching halt due to COVID.  Two-hour, in-person classes were no longer an option, but Children’s Institute was not to be stopped.  A call to the Chicago Parent Program authors instilled a new idea.  CPP had an online version of the video-based program, called ezParent, that could be made available.  Over the next few months, the RAPP team worked long and hard to establish a new version of the program for Rochester parents.  In September 2020, an online version of RAPP was launched.  This redesign was a hybrid offering, led by a trained facilitator with four online meetings for groups of 10 participants, as well as access and use of the ezParent online program from CPP.  Participants were given tablets, short-term internet access, and are paid for their time in the program.

The model was created based on feedback from RAPP parents who had, and still do, indicate that the videos and strategies offered by CPP are enhanced by the connection to both the other parents and caregivers in their classes, and the strength of the trained RAPP facilitators who led the groups.  

All of this was, and is, a success!  In collaboration with the Chicago Parent Program authors, RAPP wrote a research article about the first two years of ezParent in RAPP.  

Click below to read the article: 

“Implementation of a Parent Training Program During Community-Based Dissemination (From In-Person to Hybrid): Mixed Methods Evaluation” in the Journal of Medical Internet Research on July 3, 2024 https://doi.org/10.2196/55280

To learn more about RAPP, check out our webpage:

Rochester Area Parent Program (RAPP) | Children's Institute (childrensinstitute.net)