Exploring Processes of Change for Families at High Risk: Can Parenting Interventions Reduce Child Abuse Potential and Facilitate Conceptual Change?

The ‘Exploring Processes of Change’ (EPoC) study is an Australian longitudinal study investigating outcomes for parents and children who participated in an intensive therapeutic parenting program for families at high risk. The study provides detailed information on the processes of intervention that lead to change in parenting beliefs and behaviours and the extent to which these processes reduce the risk of child maltreatment. The project was designed in partnership with a leading not-for-profit organisation in Australia, UnitingCare Burnside, to provide much needed Australian outcome data to inform policy and service providers as they work to facilitate change in parents at risk of the abuse and neglect of their children.

This study employed standardised family outcome measurement tools, and qualitative interviews with parents (N=55) in which they were asked to reflect on their parenting and any catalysts for change. Parents were assessed at three time points over a 12 month period. The Brief Child Abuse Potential Inventory (BCAPI: Ondersma et al., 2004) was completed with the parents as the primary measure of child abuse potential.

The EPoC study was able to demonstrate a significant change (30% reduction) in the BCAPI scores of participants over 12 months for parents with higher initial risk scores. Parents described being more aware of what constituted abuse, aware for the first time of the perspective of their child and how they might experience the behaviours of their parent, and personal strategies for controlling or redirecting their own behaviours when they knew they might be responding inappropriately to their child. This is attributable to the aims and educative strategies of the program and provides a clear policy implication about strategies that work to reduce risk in vulnerable families.

This presentation will discuss the study and its findings. It will specifically address the following issues:

1. The use of standardised instruments in conjunction with qualitative evidence of conceptual change for determining program levels outcomes;
2. The value of parent perceptions as evidence of their own parenting change during the course of program participation; and
3. How these research findings might inform public policy designed to support parents to provide safe homes for their children.