UNICEF partners with the Public Television of Armenia to produce dedicated series on positive parenting

YEREVAN, 20 May – UNICEF and the Public Television of Armenia launched a unique partnership this week in the framework of the daily Healthy Lifestyle programme to support mothers and fathers to get reliable information from leading experts on positive parenting in Armenian. The programme will feature episodes, entitled ‘UNICEF corner. Positive parenting’, twice a week that have been designed with the help of Parenting School NGO.

The episodes provide practical tips and advice to parents that will improve their parenting skills, relationships with their children and their family, as well as promote a culture of self-care and positive talk about mental health and wellbeing.

“When travelling to the marzes, I often hear from women and especially new mothers that they actively seek information about childcare and parenting but usually come across either outdated information or online sources in other languages. Partnering with the Public TV and Parenting School we aim at providing useful information to caregivers in their own language and firsthand from leading psychologists in Armenia,” said Ms Silvia Mestroni, UNICEF Representative in Armenia, OIC. “The content we developed also pays attention to adolescence as a period of childhood. It’s a unique time in anyone’s life where parenting requires an approach that is adjusted to this phase of development.”

“As a public broadcaster, the First TV channel has an important educational mission to contribute to the healthy development of the society. This time our partnership with UNICEF Armenia focuses on positive parenting, and this is a special initiative for us as it will contribute to a society that has higher awareness of and consciousness about the importance of positive parenting. I am confident that in the future we will have other formats to promote positive parenting skills in Armenia,” noted Mr Tigran Virabyan, General Producer of the Public Television of Armenia.

“It was not an easy task for our experts to choose the most urgent, sensible and comprehensive topics for the series. There is so much to share with parents on conscious and positive parenting, but we chose to focus on more practical hints and on giving parents a toolkit of skills and habits for every positive parent to help them bring palpable changes in their parent-child relationships. We share information and methodology on how to become a skilled and happy parent, as we believe that only happy parents can raise happy children,” said Mrs Anna Velitsyan, founder of Parenting School NGO. “This cooperation with UNICEF gave us an unprecedented opportunity to reach every Armenian parent in every corner of the country, something we as parenting psychologists, could indeed only dream of.”

Follow the episodes on the Public Television at 18:00 or watch them online through UNICEF’s YouTube Channel [https://bit.ly/3MwfgAX].

UNICEF works to ensure wellbeing of families and children through promotion of positive parenting and provision of psychosocial support to parents and children. In 2020-2022 UNICEF has reached over 32,000 parents and children with mental health and psychosocial support.