For single parents stuck in a rut of multiple low paid jobs, life can seem pretty dire.

But Family Centre executive director Martha Dismont said there is hope in even seemingly hopeless situations.

Her team has helped turn around families when things are going wrong with children and these days, trends showing up in schoolchildren show things are going very wrong indeed.

She said: "We are finding increasing aggressive and disruptive behaviour. It's starting earlier and escalating in intensity.

"The number has risen substantially and studies have shown the more serious offenders start as early as three years old now with aggressive behaviour."

It manifests itself in anything from attacking other children to being withdrawn or flying off the handle when a teacher gives a simple command. Causes include younger, inexperienced parents who are too distracted with extra jobs.

Ms Dismont said there were fewer grandparents able to help out with childrearing, particularly when the children were aggressive.

Often it's just one parent as the number of children being raised by single mothers is going up with increasing separations, births outside marriage and incarcerations, said Ms Dismont.

It requires the Family Centre entering the home, talking over the problems and highlighting possible solutions.

Even seemingly insurmountable problems can be tackled. A parents group helps people deal with difficult offspring and learn new skills over ten weeks. Those working several low paid jobs because of low skill sets can be helped to retrain.

"It may include an apprenticeship somewhere which pays you while you are learning." Sometimes the wider family is roped into help financially.

"We have even looked for donors willing to support a family financially while they are working through a process to get increased income.

"The vision is 'I need to be working in a job that pays this much money, I need to spend this much time with Johnny' whatever the vision is, we map out the steps and walk the parent through it until they find a new job, get into the course work, find an apprenticeship, whatever it takes.

"And actually once a parent sees they have the ability to better themselves they start to build on that success.

"Often they come in with a sense of hopelessness. They are going from pay cheque to pay cheque. When you slow it down and get them to look at it and find creative ways to change things and they see it succeeding, then they lift themselves up by their bootstraps. They feel the success and can build upon it.

"We had a parent absolutely angry ¿ she felt no one was giving her a chance and she just wanted to leave the Island. But we helped her to find resources and her whole attitude changed once she saw it was possible, that people did care and there were people willing to hire her. She felt: 'I can do this'."

That's why services need to be accessible, said Ms Dismont. "All you need is a glimmer of hope and a few successes and these parents can be on their way.

"It doesn't mean that people don't slip back and get discouraged again but you are there and you provide continuous support."

It can be tricky going into someone's home and telling them what they are doing wrong ¿ but it's necessary and, of course, confidential.

"We tell families if we see you on the street we don't acknowledge you ¿ so you are confident we hold your stuff confidential."

Simple family disorganisation can lead to more problems ¿ not getting a child to school fed and on time is a sign that things are going wrong.

Another one is parents not keeping up with what the child is doing at school because they don't have the time.

"If a child did well in the early years parents tend to slack off but at the ages of ten and 11, that is when you need to pay more attention because they are very influenced by their peers at that point.

"That's when children need parents the most ¿ when they are becoming teenagers."

Parents risk causing emotional damage to children when they disparage their former partner, warned Ms Dismont. And sometimes parents with their own unresolved emotional problems load them on to their children.

"I think Bermuda has an inordinate amount of adults with historical stuff that's never been addressed.

"I believe the proportion of individuals on this island who have been exposed to some sort of abuse is very high ¿ whether it is physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse or drug abuse.

"I think there is an inordinate amount of adults who walk around with that baggage.

"I think if everybody on the island took a lie-detector test and we asked the question 'have you ever been exposed to sexual, physical or emotional abuse' I think the response would be extraordinarily high ¿ I would think one out of every four adults."

Asked why, she said: "The island is so small people have not been willing to come forward and say I have this problem, they are concerned people will know. So it is swept under the rug.

"But when things are not addressed they become cycles. An abuser abuses the next one. It's a taboo in a small environment, people are concerned it will get out ¿ so it continues."

And she said people were not sure social services were confidential enough.

Breaking the downward cycle is vital, said Ms Dismont, who said Bermuda was reaping the whirlwind started years ago.

"What we are seeing now is what we didn't do ten years ago in terms of a whole generation of young people who are not being educated and showing aggressive behaviour ¿ the gang environment is a result of what didn't take place for children ten years ago."

And she said the results of children getting more aggressive earlier are going to play out with a new generation of even more troubled children unless solutions are put in place.

"We think we have problems now but what if we have two generations of children growing up without real solutions?"

They need better education, healthier activities, supportive parents, well maintained environments and neighbours behaving in a neighbouring fashion rather than thinking only of themselves, she believes.

It needs a plan with the whole Island involved and coordinated with services at the ground level, added Ms Dismont who believes community solutions will stick.

"Gang violence can be resolved by strengthening the community."

The Family Centre is now looking to set up services within a community rather than expect people to travel to a Paget office and it is hiring a community worker.

She laments the scraping of the Parishes Achieving Change Together (PACT) initiative, to improve communities at the grass roots level, which ran under the Department of National Drug Control although it lives on in Hamilton Parish despite Government switching its resources.

"It's an absolute shame. It was a five-year programme ¿ in the third year it was cut.

She hopes Parish Councils could be used to provide support and accommodation for activists to bring change.

"Strong families come from strong neighbourhoods. Problems across the community would be better addressed by dealing with them parish by parish and neighbourhood by neighbourhood."

Typical mistakes that parents make:

? Ineffective or punitive discipline strategies

? Being inconsistent with discipline

? Underestimating their influence over the young person's life

? Inconsistency in follow through,

? Lack of patience

? Not spending enough time with their child

? Lack of teachable moments