Family Minds: A randomized controlled trial of a group intervention to improve foster parents' reflective functioning.

Family Minds is a brief group psychoeducational parenting intervention designed to increase the reflective functioning (RF) and mentalization skills of foster parents. RF is important for foster parents who have to build relationships with children whose adverse experiences increase their risk for psychosocial challenges. A randomized controlled trial (RCT) for Family Minds was conducted in Texas with 89 foster parents. The main aims of this study were to examine whether the intervention could significantly increase the RF/mentalization skills of the foster parents and decrease their parenting stress. After 6 weeks, compared with the control group, intervention foster parents improved their RF via a lowering of pre-mentalizing and also significantly decreased parenting stress related to parent-child dysfunctional interactions. Other measures of RF and parenting stress showed no significant differences between groups. Foster child behavior was not significantly different between groups, although data at 6 months showed a possible lowering of internalizing symptoms for children of intervention parents. This RCT provides some encouraging evidence that Family Minds may increase RF in foster parents, improve parental sensitivity and their ability to emotionally regulate, decrease parenting stress related to challenging interactions with their foster children, and possibly decrease children's internalizing behavior.

Adverse Childhood Experience histories in foster parents: Connections to foster children's emotional and behavioral difficulties.

BACKGROUND: Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are known risk factors for negative health and behavioral outcomes, including caregiving. Foster parents are key to supporting foster children, yet there is limited research on their ACE history and how it might relate to their foster children's behavior. OBJECTIVE: This study addressed three research questions: (1) What are ACE totals in this sample of foster parents and how do they compare with the original CDC-Kaiser study? (2) Does foster parents' ACE exposure relate to foster child behavior? (3) Is the relation between foster parents' ACEs and children's challenging behaviors different based on the specific ACE? PARTICIPANTS & SETTING: Participants were 89 foster parents (age M = 43.3 years) and 50 of their foster children (age M = 10 years) in central Texas. Children have been in their current placements for an average of 11 months (range 1 month to 4.7 years). METHODS: Foster parents completed demographics, the ACE Questionnaire (Felitti et al., 1998) and the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (Goodman, 1997). RESULTS: Results showed over 40 % of foster parents in this sample reported 2+ ACEs and 20 % reported 4+ ACEs. Foster parents' total ACEs related to foster children's emotional problems (ß = .27, p = .02), conduct problems (ß = .28, p = .01), and hyperactivity-inattention (ß = .25, p = .03). Certain ACEs related more strongly to child outcomes than others. CONCLUSIONS: Foster parents may have a higher ACE exposure than the general population. Foster parents' ACEs were associated with foster children's challenging behaviors. Future research should investigate the mechanism of this connection.