Magnitude of effect points to promising intervention for child maltreatment
Mothers who live in poverty and who have abused their children can stop if they are taught parenting skills and given emotional support.
A new study has found that mothers in families in which there is a history of child abuse and neglect were able to reduce how much they cursed at, yelled at, slapped, spanked, hit or rejected their children after a series of home visits from therapists who taught them parenting skills.
There were large improvements in mothers' parenting in the families that received the intensive services, compared to families that did not receive the services, according to SMU psychologists Ernest Jouriles and Renee McDonald at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.
As a result of the intensive, hands-on training, the women in the study said they felt they did a better job managing their children's behavior, said Jouriles and McDonald, two of the study's eight authors. The mothers also were observed to use better parenting strategies, and the families were less likely to be reported again for child abuse.
"Although there are many types of services for addressing child maltreatment, there is very little scientific data about whether the services actually work," said McDonald. "This study adds to our scientific knowledge and shows that this type of service can actually work."
Help for violent families
The parenting training is part of a program called Project Support, developed at the Family Research Center at SMU and designed to help children in severely violent families.
The study appears in the current issue of the quarterly Journal of Family Psychology. The article is titled "Improving Parenting in Families Referred for Child Maltreatment: A Randomized Controlled Trial Examining Effects of Project Support." SMU psychologist David Rosenfield also authored the study. For a link to the article abstract and related information see www.smuresearch.com.
The research was funded by the federal Interagency Consortium on Violence Against Women and Violence Within the Family, along with the Texas-based Hogg Foundation for Mental Health.
"Child maltreatment is such an important and costly problem in our society that it seems imperative to make sure that our efforts - and the tax dollars that pay for them - are actually solving the problem," said Jouriles. He and McDonald are co-founders and co-directors of the SMU Family Research Center.
In 2007, U.S. child welfare agencies received more than 3 million reports of child abuse and neglect, totaling almost 6 million children, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Poor and single with children
The study worked with 35 families screened through the Texas child welfare agency Child Protective Services, CPS. The parents had abused or neglected their children at least once, but CPS determined it best the family stay together and receive services to improve parenting and end the maltreatment.
In all the families, the mother was legal guardian and primary caregiver and typically had three children. On average she was 28, single and had an annual income of $10,300. Children in the study ranged from 3 to 8 years old.
Half the families in the study received Project Support parenting education and support. The other half received CPS's conventional services.
New parenting skills + help