The Parent Institute launched in February 2025 with a keynote presentation from Dr Jenny Brown. Dr Brown has over 35 years of clinical experience in child, couple, and family health, has authored multiple books, and founded the Family Systems Institute in 2004.

Dr Brown presented an overview of the ebbs and flows of parenting advice over the last 150 years and demonstrated the problem of parents outsourcing their decision making to ever-changing recommendations. Her consistent message was that parents best serve their children when they are attuned to their own values – that as they become responsible for their own lives they support children to develop responsibility, independence and maturity of their own.

The questions on the night reflected humility, maturity, love, and care from attending parents as they wrestled with Jenny’s challenges. Parents were moved to look beyond the quick fixes and start playing the long game where they seek to be confident individuals, by being balanced, steady leaders.

All are now invited to our upcoming four-week “Confident Parent Course” where parents from Barker and the wider community met to explore and reflect on their actions in the family. Following guided instructions from the course material developed by Dr Jenny Brown the groups will have the chance to shared their experiences and consider how to become steady, loving leaders in their families, to develop agency and self-efficacy and create an environment to nurture resilience in their children

Complementing our in-school program for the students, there are various Parent Institute events organised for evenings this year on topics ranging from character development, to online safety, to working through tech-enabled addictions (e.g. gaming or gambling). We look forward to connecting with you soon.