Group-based parenting education programs and their influence on protective factors for child abuse and neglect

Abstract

The main purpose of the current study was to investigate the influence of group-based parenting education programs on protective factors that prevent child abuse and neglect. The group-based parenting education programs that were chosen in this study were a family literacy program, a parent-child interaction program, and a child safety and welfare education program. All participant families showed promising results in enhancing family functioning/resiliency, social support, concrete support, knowledge of parenting and child development, and nurturing and attachment and families attending different parenting education programs showed significantly different improvement in concrete support, social support, and knowledge of parenting and child development. In addition, families with different demographic characteristics showed significantly different improvement in all five protective factors. The presence of five protective factors can reduce the likelihood of abuse and neglect and group-based parenting education can help provide safe environments for children by supporting families.

Keywords:

• Parenting
• child abuse and neglect
• protective factors
• group-based parenting education

Acknowledgments

I would like to acknowledge the parents/caregivers and young children who participated in parenting education programs for this study. The followings are also gratefully acknowledged: Program Officer Heidi Peter Meier and Parenting Educators Olga Soto and Maria Ambriz. I also thank our community partners such as Acelero Head Start programs, Las Vegas and Henderson community centers, Las Vegas-Clark County Library, family resource centers, and Clark County Family and Community Engagement Services (FACES) parent centers.

Disclosure of interest statement

The author declares that there is no conflict of interest.

Ethical standards and informed consent

All procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation [Institutional Review Board (IRB) protocols of the University of Nevada, Reno] and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000. Informed consent was obtained from all parents/caregivers for being included in the study. No identifying information about parents/caregivers was included in the article.