A Trial of Parent Training for Mothers Being Released From Incarceration and Their Children

Abstract

Children of incarcerated mothers are considered at risk for disruptive behavior problems and later delinquency. Parenting may play a key role in this intergenerational transmission of delinquency. The present study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of the Incredible Years parent training, enhanced with home visits, for (formerly) incarcerated mothers to prevent disruptive behavior problems in their 2- to 10-year-old children, by means of a nationwide randomized controlled trial. Mothers of 133 children (M age = 76.91 months; 48.9% boys) were assigned to an intervention, consisting of group sessions and individual home visits, or a no-intervention control group. The intervention yielded significant effects on parenting and child behavior for maternal report. Marginally significant effects on child behavior were found for teacher report. The results show short-term effectiveness of parent training for the high-risk and hard-to-reach population of (formerly) incarcerated mothers and their children.

Acknowledgments

The original research project is funded by the Dutch Ministry of Security and Justice, Directorate-General for Youth and Sanctions, Judicial Youth Policy Department. The funders facilitated recruitment but were not involved in recruitment, randomization, data collection, intervention, or preparation of the manuscript.

Notes

¹A 2:1 allocation ratio was chosen to ensure sufficient group size within the group sessions. The IYPT requires at least six parents to optimize group discussions and to foster a sense of support (Webster-Stratton, 2001).

²We used the customary definition of foreigner in the Netherlands (Keij, 2000), which says that a person is considered a foreigner if at least one parent was born abroad. That is, all mothers who were not considered foreigners were considered native Dutch.

³Four-level MLwiN models were run as part of preliminary analyses to examine the nesting of families within groups (i.e., families were part of one of six intervention groups, five opt-out groups or four control groups). Because variance at the group level did not exist in 11 of 16 analyses, and did not exceed 5% of total variance in three other analyses, group level was not included in the final models.

Note: ECBI = Eyberg Child Behavior Inventory; (C)TRF = Teacher's Report Form or Caregiver–Teacher Report Form; APQ = Alabama Parenting Questionnaire.

Note: B values, with standard errors in parentheses. ECBI-IS = Eyberg Child Behavior Inventory–Intensity scale; ECBI-PS = Eyberg Child Behavior Inventory–Problem scale; (C)TRF = Teacher's Report Form or Caregiver–Teacher Report Form–Aggressive behavior; ICC = intraclass correlation; Time = assessment wave.

†p < .10. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001 (one-tailed for Group × Time; two-tailed for other parameters).

Note: B values, with standard errors in parentheses. APQ-I = Alabama Parenting Questionnaire–involvement; APQ-PP = Alabama Parenting Questionnaire–positive parenting; APQ-PM = Alabama Parenting Questionnaire–poor monitoring/supervision; APQ-ID = Alabama Parenting Questionnaire–inconsistent discipline; APQ-CP = Alabama Parenting Questionnaire–corporal punishment; ICC = intraclass correlation; Time = assessment wave.

*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001 (one-tailed for Group × Time; two-tailed for other parameters).