Lessons in being good parents have been so successful in stamping down on rowdy Keighley youngsters that they could be adopted across the district.

The good-parenting course for mums and dads was set up in a last-ditch effort to clamp down on youngsters waging a war of terror on Keighley's Braithwaite estate about 18 months ago. Families were threatened with eviction if they failed to control youngsters who were breaking windows and starting fires.

The police, City Hall's youth service and the Keighley branch of the Children's Society joined forces and set up positive-parenting courses at the estate's Keith Thompson Centre.

The council's services to young people committee is recommending the courses be used as a model of good practise and be considered for use elsewhere in the Bradford district.

Helping spearhead the project was Gina Thompson who had just started her own programme of confident parenting for volunteering parents when the problem arose. Drafted in for their experience were Keighley detached youth wor-kers Dave Spencer and Diane Gillard.

Mrs Thompson says: "These parents were under threat of eviction and somebody had to do something. They were encouraged to join in after they agreed they were having problems.

"We are not trying to teach them how to bring up their kids. It is a question of looking at the positive things in their lives."

A spokesman for Keighley Police says: "A small number of families were targeted for this initiative and as a result complaints about anti-social behaviour on the estate have dropped dramatically."

Mrs Thompson is about to start a similar confident parenting programme at Guardhouse School and anyone interested should telephone her on 01535 610227.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.