Seminar helps inner-city residents build parenting skills

Based on the belief that lives--not just stores--must be rebuilt in post-riot Los Angeles, one of the nation’s preeminent parent training organizations hosted a free seminar Saturday to

teach 100 inner-city parents how to develop their children’s self-worth. The all-day session, held at USC under a grant from Xerox, was devised by the Center for the Improvement of Child

Caring, a Studio City-based group that has been teaching the skills and strategies of good parenting since 1974. “If we really want to rebuild our community, we should focus our energies on

bringing parents and kids closer together,” said the center’s founder, Kerby T. Alvy, a clinical child psychologist. “It is more urgent than ever.” What is unique about the training sessions

is that they are geared to the needs of specific cultural and ethnic groups. On Saturday, separate classes were taught for African-Americans, Asian-Americans and Latinos. Teaching black

children about the richness of African history can be an antidote for racism, the instructors said, while Latino parents were offered techniques for balancing a bilingual, bicultural home.

No class was offered specifically for white parents, Alvy said, because they have been the beneficiaries of parenting research. MORE TO READ