Advancing Parenting

My name is David Dooley.  I am the retired sixty-three year old founder/president of Advancing Parenting, a nonprofit organization.  Advancing Parenting is essentially a one man operation...there is no office and there are no employees.  Visit www.advancingparenting.org to read about what we do, why we do it, and our big plans for the future.

1.  What problem are you committed to solving?

Advancing Parenting is committted to improving the quality of parenting in communities, thereby preventing the adverse childhood experiences associated with unsupportive and harmful parenting.

2.  What project are you proposing?

Advancing Parenting is proposing what we call proactive, participatory, passive, public parenting education...a public health media campaign that allows and, in fact, encourages everyone to become a participant. 

3.  How could your project elevate humanity?

The ACE Study, https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/childabuseandneglect/acestudy/index.html, and its follow-ups have shown that adverse childhood experiences have a devastating impact on children, adults, families, and communities.  A new kind of parenting education...one that reaches everyone, everywhere, all the time will improve the overall quality of parenting and prevent unsupportive and harmful parenting five, ten, twenty, fifty years down the road.

The specific problem is adverse childhood experiences and the scale is huge and costly.  $748,000,000,000 is the estimated economic cost of adverse childhood experiences in North America.

28% of the original study participants reported physical abuse and 21% reported sexual abuse. 

Adverse childhood experiences often occur together.  Almost 40% of the original sample reported two or more ACEs and 12.5% experienced four or more.

In an effort to improve the quality of parenting in communities and prevent the adverse childhood experiences associated with unsupportive and harmful parenting, Advancing Parenting is pioneering a new kind of parenting education...one that reaches everyone, everywhere, all the time.  We began with parenting norms on bumpers and windows because it was the least expensive way to get things rolling.  Turns out they're wonderfully effective.  At stoplights drivers and passengers point, nod, and smile.  Conversations begin and often a phone is used to take a picture of the bumper sticker. 

It's also a way for individuals and organizations to participate.   Every school, daycare, business, agency, doctor's office, clinic, hospital, etc. should have sets of these fifty-one parenting norms bumper stickers on a counter or table so parents, customers, and clients can help themselves.  Parenting norms on vehicles will be read thousands of times by thousands of different people of all ages for years to come.  

We have requests from across the U.S. and Canada for tens of thousands.  The requests come from child abuse prevention councils, family resource centers, and individuals.  Sadly, the requests are just sitting in my inbox because we haven't the funds to print them.

Our activities do not target specific demographic groups.  Anyone can put one of our fifty-one parenting norms bumper stickers on their car...and everyone who pull up behind a car at a stoplight will be able to read it.

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Advancing Parenting's activities we inspired by the work of Nobel Laureate, W. Edwards Deming.

I am passionate about Advancing Parenting activities because parenting is foundational.  When parents do right by their children legions of problems are prevented.

I haven't the skills, background, or experiences that uniquely position me to solve this problem.  However, I'm the only person on the planet to come up with the concept, develop it, and make it a reality.

Advancing Parenting's activities are an example of primary prevention.  That is, an activity that prevents problems before they occur.  Examples of primary prevention include immunization, exercise, good nutrition, and not smoking.  Primary prevention activities are typically underfunded.  Financial support more often finds its way to after-the-fact activities associated with treatment, healing, recovery, and rehabilitation.

This has been and remains an obstacle that I struggle with daily.

I'm not much of a leader.