Addresses the problem of engaging and retaining parents in interventions aimed at promoting parenting effectiveness and child coping-competence in preschoolers, as a means of interrupting developmental trajectories that can lead to serious youth violence before these trajectories become stable. Focus on preschoolers reflects the fact that parents play a critical role in fostering competence in young children, but are often reluctant to engage and participate fully in well-validated preventive programs. The program to be offered is a group intervention for parents of 4- and 5-year old children attending preschools and daycare centers serving mainly families with high socioeconomic disadvantage. It emphasizes parental socialization practices that promote child coping-competence, reduce early aggression and antisocial behavior, and prepare children for the challenges of formal schooling. Intervention is held constant in a design that tests the impact of host-organization investment and involvement (H-OII) on engagement and retention (with matched random assignment of centers to experimental and control conditions). Participants-to be recruited through the Indiana Minority Health Coalition and consisting of minority and non- minority families-are exposed to a high or a low level of H-OII, which is the experimentally manipulated independent variable. This variable is deployed in two studies. Study One examines engagement and retention as a function of high vs. low levels of H-OII and evaluates short-term impact of the intervention. Study Two is a replication of the H-OII test on engagement and retention. The design integrates organizational, family, and parent-child levels of intervention and analysis to: l) test the impact of H-OII on engagement and retention in the program; 2) test a conceptual model of engagement and retention; 3) evaluate the short-term impact of the program on parenting practices and on child coping-competence and early aggression and antisocial behavior, and assess the extent to which engagement and retention are related to these outcomes; 4) explore the potential impact of H-OII on the organizational practices of centers participating in the project; and 5) refine a set of engagement and retention procedures to promote large scale evaluation and dissemination of effective programs for parents on the basis of experimental evidence on engagement and retention.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development (NICHD)
Type
Exploratory/Developmental Grants (R21)
Project #
7R21HD040079-04
Application #
6671153
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (ZRG1-SSS-C (01))
Program Officer
Feerick, Margaret M
Project Start
2000-09-21
Project End
2004-06-30
Budget Start
2002-08-16
Budget End
2004-06-30
Support Year
4
Fiscal Year
2002
Total Cost
$222,213
Indirect Cost
Name
Purdue University
Department
Psychology
Type
Schools of Arts and Sciences
DUNS #
072051394
City
West Lafayette
State
IN
Country
United States
Zip Code
47907