The Visible Difference Parenting Toolkit now available

Researchers from Centre for Appearance Research have put together a self-guided e-book with input from parents with lived experience and clinicians. It aims to improve the wellbeing of parents and carers of children with visible differences and is now available to download.

Click to enlarge

To determine the impact of using the toolkit, an evaluation was carried out, which consisted of online surveys and interviews with parents and carers which the Psoriasis Association shared on our social media platforms and website.

173 parents and carers used the toolkit. Afterwards, they experienced:

- Increased confidence in their parenting skills.

- Increased self-compassion.

- Increased ability to adapt to difficult situations, thoughts and emotions in a way that was consistent with their values and goals.

- Decreased anxiety.

- Decreased depression.

- Decreased parenting stress.

Click to enlarge

Researchers also spoke to 9 parents to get more detail about their experiences of using the toolkit. They said:

"It's highlighting the importance of actually taking care of yourself first."

"It's already made a huge impact to my wellbeing and how I've dealt with things, and how I'll probably deal with things in the future."

"I haven’t seen anything else really... This was the only thing that I’d come across that specifically answered questions from a parent/carers point of view"

“I just felt so empowered by it. I felt it was giving us a lot of tools”

What do the findings mean?

The Visible Difference Parenting Toolkit appears to be effective at promoting psychological wellbeing of parents and carers of children with visible difference.

The Visible Difference Parenting Toolkit can be accessed and downloaded for free from The Visible Difference Support Hub: www.VisibleDifferenceSupportHub.com/the-visible-difference-parenting-toolkit/

If you have any questions about The Visible Difference Parenting Toolkit, please contact Maia Thornton at Maia.Thornton@uwe.ac.uk