Carolyn Webster-Stratton’s place in family therapy lore is well secured, thanks to the success of her Incredible Years classes for families. Webster-Stratton is a professor at the University of Washington, where she developed the early-intervention parenting program that is sweeping the world. And thanks to a partnership between the City of Portland’s Children’s Investment Fund and Morrison, Portland has played a key role in the implementation of “Incredible Years.”

To date, the City of Portland’s Children’s Investment Fund has awarded Morrison grants totaling more than $2 million to offer prevention-oriented family services. One of the grants specifically called for Morrison to implement Incredible Years. Morrison had prior experience with this model thanks to a 2002 federal grant that helped introduce families here to the concept.

Taxpayers created The Children’s Investment Fund in 2002 when they approved a ballot measure that generated about $8.5 million annually to support programs for children and youth. The money directed toward expanding Incredible Years in Portland has been an astute investment in the community, say all those involved in the program.

Incredible Years brings parents together in facilitated weekly groups over a period of 12 - 14 weeks to learn more effective parenting skills. The program’s primary focus is helping parents make better child-rearing decisions, thus building stronger families. The model, which has won nearly universal praise by those who have experienced it, includes dinner and child care for the participating families. Numerous studies show the program’s success in reducing children's aggression and behavior problems and increasing social skills at home and at school. Children's mental health centers, child protective agencies, Head Start centers and schools throughout the world provide Incredible Years groups.

There are several key factors to the success of Incredible Years, says Kathryn Falkenstern, Early Childhood Clinical Supervisor at Morrison: intensive training of facilitators; a thoroughly tested and consistent curriculum; its family-friendliness; and its related program for children, called Dinosaur School. “Incredible Years connects families that are often isolated with other families that face similar challenges,” Falkenstern says. “It gives parents a sense that they are not alone. And it is very skills oriented.”

Families that have gone through Incredible Years groups are almost unanimous in their praise for the program. And so is the Morrison Program Evaluation team, which measures the outcomes of all programs and also gets feedback from clients on the value of the services they receive. Program Evaluation staff members have been so impressed by Incredible Years that they have encouraged other Morrison programs to integrate it into treatment. After all, a dash of Incredible Years can make an outstanding program—incredible!

Morrison Child and Family Services is the only organization in the Pacific Northwest to receive recognition from SAMHSA, the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. We won the Science to Service Award in the Mental Health Promotion category for our implementation of the Incredible Years, a prevention and intervention program for preschool children at risk for developing severe behavioral problems.