NCJ Number
196262
Journal
Child Maltreatment Volume: 7 Issue: 3 Dated: August 2002 Pages: 277-285
Date Published
August 2002
Length
9 pages
Annotation
This article reports on an evaluation of Project Safecare, an in-home research and intervention program designed to teach parenting techniques to parents who had been reported for child abuse and neglect.
Abstract
Parents who participated in Project SafeCare received training in three aspects of child care: treating illnesses and maximizing their health-care skills (health), positive and effective parent-child interaction skills (bonding), and maintaining hazard-free homes (safety) for their children. Families were included in this evaluation if they had completed all three training components and posttraining data collections. The latter involved measures on the Beck Depression Inventory, the Child Abuse Potential Inventory, and the Parenting Stress Index. Postcontact (after initial intake was made and the program began) incidents of child abuse and neglect for maltreating parents who participated in and completed the program were compared with a group of maltreating families from the point of initial intake through a 24-month follow-up period. The comparison group (referred to as the Family Preservation group) received intervention from Family Preservation programs. A repeated measures analysis was used to compare the frequency of postcontact recidivism reports for both groups. The analysis focused solely on the number of reports for each group per year for a 4-year period, beginning June 1994 and ending in May 1998. The evaluation found that families who participated in Project SafeCare had significantly fewer reports of child abuse and neglect than families in the comparison group. 2 figures and 40 references