In Their Own Voice: Mothers in Drug Treatment and Their Views on Parenting, Behavioral Parent Training, and Barriers to Engagement

Abstract

Behavioral parent training offers mothers in drug treatment a valuable opportunity to improve their parenting skills through real-time, individualized coaching, but these mothers might be reluctant to participate with their child. Participants were 23 mothers or female guardians from 4 drug treatment programs with children 1 to 10 years old. Focus group discussions and questionnaires asked about their perspectives on parenting and their interest in and obstacles to participating in behavioral parent training. Detailed narrative responses and quantitative analyses identified some unique issues in parenting for this population as well as logistical, attitudinal, and emotional barriers to participating in behavioral parent training with their children.

KEYWORDS:

• addiction
• behavioral parent training
• drug treatment
• engagement
• mothers
• parenting

We would like to thank Jennifer Ingegneri and Crystal Williams for assisting with data collection and analysis, and John Cacciola for providing helpful advice.