There is an urgent need to develop a national policy on the provision of parenting programmes, says Geraldine French, training officer with Barnardo's and author of Enhancing Our Future, a report on parenting programmes in Ireland.

While there are several new parenting programmes being piloted, very few have been externally evaluated and the level of training of programme facilitators varies widely, she says.

The report, which was published this summer, is a comprehensive guide to what's available throughout the State. It shows that there has been an amazing increase in the number of programmes available over the past two years.

Barnardo's National Children's Resource Centre has been keeping track of such courses for the last three years. "When we first set up the database in 1995 there were 132 programmes," French says. "Of those, only 56 were still up and running this year - but there were 174 new programmes available. There is an amazing wealth of work being carried out in this area, much of it very low profile."

And while you can now get quite detailed information on each programme through the resource centre, the lack of external evaluation of parenting programmes means there is no guarantee you will come out the other end a sane and well balanced parent. "It is important for any programme to be able to stand up to rigorous scrutiny in order to ensure that a parenting programme is not going to actually do any damage to a parent," French says. "In a worst case scenario, you could have parents coming away feeling undermined and de-skilled, when in fact the function of any programme is to empower parents. "Evaluation should be integral to any programme, but that is not always the case here yet."

The Irish Pre-School Playgroups Association has been running a programme called Parenting Through Play since 1995. Hillary Kenny, the association's director of services, says: "Unless you have some sort of long-term follow up and external evaluation, it is very difficult to ascertain the impact on family life.

"We do ongoing evaluation of our programme throughout and at the end of the course, and we get extremely good feedback. But there is a terrible lack of research on parenting in general. "This course was very carefully devised, with support from the Marino Institute of Education, and we would have no fears of external evaluation ourselves. We would actually welcome it, and if someone would provide the funding we would happily pay someone to do an evaluation."

Fas Le Cheile is a parenting programme run by the North Western Health Board. The programme has been running successfully since 1995, but the health board is facing a similar difficulty with evaluation.

David Simpson, the Donegal parenting co-ordinator explains: "We haven't had an external evaluation of our programme and it is hard to tell what the long-term impact might be. We do get very positive feedback from parents who do the course - they say they enjoy it and they tell us it's really made a difference. But our information is largely anecdotal, so we are looking for funding to properly research the effects of the programme."

The report also recommends a system of accreditation for programme facilitators. "The notion of providing parenting programmes at national level is quite new here," French says. "So although demand and availability are growing, we have yet to set up key areas of provision.

"As parents we all have our own personal opinions and ways of dealing with situations, and it takes a tremendous skill to look at alternatives without undermining participants on a programme. "That is the job of the facilitator, so obviously you need to be highly trained to carry out your job properly."

Why the rapid growth in parenting programmes? There are a number reasons. According to Hillary Kenny, "family and community structures have changed, so parents don't have the same support their parents had. "We are also given so much information these days, and an awful lot of it is on what not to do. Parents want to do their best but they don't always feel confident about their skills. "A parenting programme can be very beneficial to their self-confidence."

Simpson finds that parents who do the Fas Le Cheile programme regularly talk about their isolation - and about the relief of finding a group of people who share their difficulties and concerns. "It is quite a positive thing to do, it shows a willingness to explore ideas and a desire to do the best for their children."

French agrees. "Parenting programmes are extremely valuable in bringing communities together and providing support," she says. "Parents get to meet other parents dealing with similar challenges. Ideally those parents leave feeling empowered and continue to offer one another long-term support."