A three year research project is proposed to study the effect of crises and support systems on family processes, antisocial child behavior, and caretaker depression within single-parent families. A model is presented that describes both short-term and longer-term effects that may result from crisis-induced disruptions. A multilevel assessment of 100 families will be conducted. To be included in the study, these families will have arrived at single-parent status within the past 12 months, have a male child between the ages of 6 and 12, and pass a screening procedure indicating moderate to high levels of stress for the caretaker. After the initial screening for these criteria, caretakers and their children will participate in an intensive multilevel assessment over a three-week period. The assessment will include measures of crises, family management, parent support systems, microsocial family processes as measured by home observations, child antisocial behavior, parent personality, and other outcomes of family disruption. The findings from this phase will provide a test of the hypothesese that define the expected short-term effects of crises. Approximately 12 months after the initial assessment, the caretaker and target child will participate in an abbreviated assessment program (approximately one hour). Only constructs relating to crises, family management, support groups, caretaker depression, and child antisocial behavior will be assessed at this time. The general thrust is to demonstrate a significant relation between crises, support, and family process measures at time 1 and the measures of deviancy assessed a year later at time 2. It is hypothesized that discruptions in family process will make significant contributions to predicting long-term consequences (i.e., antisocial child behavior and caretaker depression with the time 1 measures for these dependent variables partialed out. The final year of the project will be devoted to intensive analysis of the data set and writing up of the findings.
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