Program Overview

The Incredible Years is an early childhood emotional and social health program designed to increase a child’s success at school and at home by promoting positive parent, teacher, and child relationships.

The program improves school performance, reduces child behavior problems, promotes positive and consistent discipline, and supports caregivers through a holistic approach involving children, parents, and teachers.

And, like every Invest in Kids program, The Incredible Years is proven to be effective through research, measurable community impact, and ongoing sustainability.

 

PROGRAM APPROACH

The Incredible Years addresses the unique needs of each audience through distinct, yet integrated strategies and skill-building programs. Each program within The Incredible Years has been created to be culturally sensitive and developmentally age appropriate.

• Skill Building for Children: Classroom and small group activities that provide children with special attention and tools to build skills in anger management, problem solving, emotional competence, empathy, and friendship development
• Skill Building for Parents: Facilitated, weekly group discussions that offer parents support and activities to strengthen parenting skills, helping promote social competence and reducing behavior problems in their children
• Skill Building for Teachers: Video-based training, modeling, and guided practice that provides teachers proven classroom management strategies, including effective use of teacher attention, praise, and encouragement that promote classroom success

INVEST IN KIDS’ ROLE

Invest in Kids is responsible for making The Incredible Years accessible to communities across Colorado. We are the only authorized program trainer in the state, and offer intensive coaching and ongoing evaluation for teachers and parent group leaders to ensure long-term program success and impact.

RESULTS

In a series of studies involving low-income parents and their children, The Incredible Years programs produced
the following remarkable results:

• 91% of the children showed significant reductions in conduct problems
• 73% of the children showed significant reductions in negative behaviors at home
• 69% of the children showing poor social skills at school-year beginning demonstrated normal skills at year’s end
• 80% of children continued to show improved conduct a year after program end

Source: Blueprints for Violence Prevention: Book Eleven - The Incredible Years: Parent, Teacher, and Child Training Series, Elliott et al.