It has been well-established that domestic violence (DV) has detrimental effects on children's mental health. However, few interventions have been developed based on empirically-derived mechanisms that have been shown to reduce risk and increase resilience in children exposed to DV. We have recently discovered that """"""""emotion coaching"""""""" buffers children from the negative effects of DV (Katz &Windecker-Nelson, in press). When children exposed to DV have parents who engage in emotion coaching, they show fewer behavior problems. The goal of the proposed application is to translate these basic behavioral findings on risk and resiliency into a parenting intervention for battered women. This is consistent with the goals of NIH PA-04-075, Mental Health Consequences of Violence and Trauma, that seeks investigator-initiated research related to the """"""""translation and testing of scientifically generated information into clinical application, interventions and services...related to violence and trauma."""""""" Specific aims of the proposed application are to: (1) develop an empirically-based emotion coaching parenting intervention to help battered women improve their parenting skills;(2) develop measures of treatment fidelity;participant satisfaction, understanding and mastery of treatment skills;and therapist skill;(3) manualize this new intervention and associated procedures and measures;(4) pilot test this intervention with mothers of 6-12 year olds who have been exposed to DV, and (5) assess the feasibility of a later clinical trial by examining the distributions of outcomes observed and obtaining a preliminary indication of intervention effect size. We expect emotion coaching in face of DV to result in improvements in the quality of parent-child interaction, increase children's emotion regulation abilities (including their ability to reduce physiological arousal), and reduce child behavior problems. Promising findings would form the basis of a research proposal for a clinical outcome study comparing emotion coaching to other parenting treatments for families exposed to DV. Domestic violence has detrimental effects on children's mental health. However, few interventions have been developed based on empirically-derived mechanisms that are known to reduce risk and increase resilience in children exposed to DV. This application will translate basic behavioral findings on risk and resiliency into an emotion coaching parenting intervention for battered women.
