Studies in Educational Management

DIR aims to increase the communication skills of stressed parents and teenagers by the teaching of senior volunteers transformed in coaches through the experience of an intangible European cultural heritage: the art of cooking and dinner together. Our first questionnaire revealed, as we expected, a reluctance to discuss major issues of relevance, a mis-match in what the issues actually were, even the involvement of grandparents or the extended family. In some parents an abdication of parental concern, citing the parents lack of confidence in their own ability, a willingness to leave it to experts and teachers. Our results so far (we have another 12 months to continue our project) lead us to believe that a communicational learning pathway is needed carried out by mentors and senior volunteers. We anticipate the results of our project to be a better understanding of the development needs of parents of disenfranchised adolescents.