Paper
Parent management training of foster parents: development, user evaluation and RCT
- issue: Issue 1 / 2009
- authors: Reidar Jakobsen
- keywords: Foster, parents, conduct disorder, Norway
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- downloaded: 0
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abstract
Background. The aim of this project is to evaluate the effectiveness of a course for foster parents. This, 9-day course, is based on the Parent Management Training - Oregon model (PMTO) and aims to prevent the development of conduct disorder amongst foster children aged 4 to 12 year. PMTO is developed by Gerrald Patterson and co-workers at Oregon Social Learning Center, US. The development of the method, as well as the theoretical model, can be traced back to the 1960s. An extensive research literature favouring this model when it comes to preventing and treating conduct disorders amongst children. The model has however to a little extent been applied and examined outside the US.
This presentation will give an example of adaptation and implementation of an evidence-based method from US in a Norway and in so doing present one of the very first randomized controlled trial in child welfare in Norway and the Nordic countries.
Purpose. At the conference we will give a short presentation of the PMTO-course. The course, as the clinical PMTO-intervention, focus on how foster parents can use positive involvement and contingent positive reinforcement (e.g., praise and incentive charts) to promote prososial behaviour. Simultaneously, the intervention teaches parents strategies for decreasing coercive exchanges with their children by responding early and appropriately to child misbehaviour with non-corporal discipline (e.g., time-out, work chores, and privilege removal). Other issues relevant to parenting is also included (monitoring, problem solving, and regulating negative emotions).
Furthermore, we will present the randomized controlled trail (RCT) set up to evaluate the effect of the course. This is one of the very first RCT in child welfare in Norway. In the RCT, data are collected at baseline, after 6., 12., and finely after 24 months (autumn 2007). Information is primarily captured by using standardized questionnaires to foster parent and teachers:
- Aseba instruments that comprises a family of instruments for assessing problems, competencies, and adaptive functioning for persons between the ages of 1.5 and 18.
- The Eyberg Child Behavior Inventory (ECBI), designed to assess parental report of conduct behavioural problems in children and adolescents ages 2-16.
- Social Skills Rating System (SSRS) a standardized series of questionnaires that obtain information on the social behaviours of children and adolescents from teachers and parents. In addition observational data are collected. Almost 90 foster families participate in the study.
Key findings, At the conference user evaluations from the foster parents receiving the PMTO-course will be presented as well as some preliminary finding concerning the effectiveness of the course on foster children's behaviour. Implications for further implementation of the PMTO-course for foster parents in Norway will be discussed. Our experience of conducting an RCT in the child welfare system in Norway will also be addressed.
Key references
Patterson, G.R., DeGarmo, D. & Forgatch, M.S. (2004). Systematic Changes in Families Following Prevention Trials. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, Volume 32, (6), 621-633.
Ogden,T., Forgatch, M., Askeland, E., Patterson,G.R., & Bullock, B.M. (2005). Implementation of Parent Management Training at the national level: The case of Norway. Journal of Social Work Practice, 19, 317-329.
Contacts: Reidar Jakobsen, dr. psychol., Child Protection Research Unit, Unifob Health, University of Bergen, Norway, Christiesgate13, 5015 Bergen, Norway E-mail: reidar.jakobsen@bus.uib.no, Phone: +47 55583268.