Centering Parenting: Pilot Implementation of a Group Model for Teaching Family Medicine Residents Well-Child Care

Well-child care is a core service of primary care with the overall goal of promoting the physical health, cognitive growth, and emotional well-being of children. Leaders in child health care recommend that to achieve this goal, primary care physicians use a parent-centered approach, with a focus on the parent–child relationship in the context of family, culture, and community.1 To meet this goal in the family medicine residency program at the University of California, San Francisco Department of Family and Community Medicine, we are testing the use of Centering Parenting,2 a parent-centered group-care model for providing well-child care to address the needs of our socioeconomically disadvantaged patient population. Here we describe the use of this model and report on its evaluation. Patients begin their experience in prenatal groups, then transition into parenting groups. This approach emphasizes the parent- and group-centered concepts developed in prenatal groups, specifically the integration of health assessment, education, and support. To integrate these concepts, Centering Parenting focuses on continuing positive support by valuing and building on successes within groups started during pregnancy. Relationships that develop in prenatal groups support peer-to-peer learning and trust, and they transition well into Centering Parenting, where parents continue to build on their collective knowledge about caring for their babies. The groups have an average size of four mother-baby pairs.