Effects of a preventive parenting intervention for bereaved families on the intergenerational transmission of parenting attitudes: Mediating processes.

This study evaluated whether the Family Bereavement Program (FBP), a prevention program for parentally bereaved families, improved parenting attitudes toward parental warmth and physical punishment in young adult offspring 15 years after participation and identified mediational cascade pathways. One hundred fifty-six parents and their 244 offspring participated. Data were collected at pretest (ages 8-16), posttest, and six- and 15-year follow-ups. Ethnicity of offspring was: 67% non-Hispanic Caucasian, 16% Hispanic, 7% African American, 3% Native American, 1% Asian or Pacific Islander, and 6% other; 54% were males. There was a direct effect of the FBP on attitudes toward physical punishment; offspring in the FBP had less favorable attitudes toward physical punishment. There were also indirect effects of the FBP on parenting attitudes. The results supported a cascade effects model in which intervention-induced improvements in parental warmth led to fewer externalizing problems in adolescence/emerging adulthood, which in turn led to less favorable attitudes toward physical punishment. In addition, intervention-induced improvements in parental warmth led to improvements in anxious romantic attachment in mid-to-late adolescence/emerging adulthood, which led to more favorable attitudes toward parental warmth in emerging/young adulthood. These findings suggest that the effects of relatively brief prevention programs may persist into subsequent generations.

Feasibility, Acceptability, and Effectiveness of Adding an Evidence-Based Parent/Caregiver Program for Bereaved Families to Usual Community-Based Services.

This paper briefly describes the development of the Resilient Parenting for Bereaved Families program (RPBF) and presents an evaluation of adding the RPBF to usual care (UC) provided by community agencies supporting families of bereaved children. The RPBF was adapted from the caregiver component of a family program that demonstrated significant benefits for parentally children and their parents in a randomized controlled trial. The current study found that the implementation of the RPBF program was feasible for implementation by community providers and was highly acceptable to caregivers. Subgroups of caregivers (n = 44) who received the RPBF in addition to UC (i.e., child groups and caregiver support groups) reported greater improvement in quality of parenting and complicated grief and reductions in children's behavior problems as compared with caregivers (n = 30) who received UC only. Improvement in parenting mediated the RPBF program's effect to reduce children's behavior problems.

Randomized Effectiveness Trial of the New Beginnings Program for Divorced Families with Children and Adolescents.

This study presents findings from a randomized effectiveness trial of the New Beginnings Program (NBP), which has demonstrated efficacy in 2 prior randomized efficacy trials. Family courts in 4 counties facilitated recruitment of divorcing and separating parents, and providers in community agencies delivered the program. Participants were 830 parents of children ages 3-18 who were randomized to receive either the 10-session NBP or an active 2-session comparison condition in which parents learned about the same parenting skills but did not complete home practice of these skills. Parents were ethnically diverse (59.4% non-Hispanic White, 31.4% Hispanic, 9.2% other race or ethnicity). Multiple rater assessments of parenting, interparental conflict, and child mental health problems were conducted at pretest, posttest, and 10-month follow-up. The results indicated positive moderated effects of the NBP as compared with the active control condition to strengthen parenting at posttest and to reduce child mental health problems at posttest and 10 months. Many of these moderated effects showed positive benefits for non-Hispanic White families but not for Hispanic families. The findings indicate support for the effectiveness of the NBP when delivered by community-based agencies but also indicate the need for further adaptations to make the program effective for Hispanic parents.

Cost-benefit analysis of a preventive intervention for divorced families: reduction in mental health and justice system service use costs 15 years later.

This cost-benefit analysis compared the costs of implementing the New Beginnings Program (NBP), a preventive intervention for divorced families to monetary benefits saved in mental healthcare service use and criminal justice system costs. NBP was delivered when the offspring were 9-12 years old. Benefits were assessed 15 years later when the offspring were young adults (ages 24-27). This study estimated the costs of delivering two versions of NBP, a single-component parenting-after-divorce program (Mother Program, MP) and a two-component parenting-after-divorce and child-coping program (Mother-Plus-Child Program, MPCP), to costs of a literature control (LC). Long-term monetary benefits were determined from actual expenditures from past-year mental healthcare service use for mothers and their young adult (YA) offspring and criminal justice system involvement for YAs. Data were gathered from 202 YAs and 194 mothers (75.4 % of families randomly assigned to condition). The benefits, as assessed in the 15th year after program completion, were $1630/family (discounted benefits $1077/family). These 1-year benefits, based on conservative assumptions, more than paid for the cost of MP and covered the majority of the cost of MPCP. Because the effects of MP versus MPCP on mental health and substance use problems have not been significantly different at short-term or long-term follow-up assessments, program managers would likely choose the lower-cost option. Given that this evaluation only calculated economic benefit at year 15 and not the previous 14 (nor future years), these findings suggest that, from a societal perspective, NBP more than pays for itself in future benefits.