The broad objectives of this project are to identify and explore the changes in maternal-infant attachment and infant/toddler development as they occur during incarceration on a prison nursery and during the year following release of the infant with and without the mother. The overall goal is to enrich the knowledge base from which prison and community based parenting programs can be developed and tested and to improve the lives of incarcerated women and their children during co-detention and following release.
The specific aims are: (1) to compare the impact of an intervention designed to enhance mother-infant synchrony versus a basic child care intervention on: parent-child interaction, parenting competency, and child development; (2) To measure type of attachment achieved by infants in the prison nursery and maintained during the transition to the community in relation to: the inmate mother's own attachment and to participation in either intervention; and (3) To identify the impact of raising an infant on the prison nursery on subsequent short-term criminal recidivism of the mother. Inmate participants and their infants are randomly assigned to one of the two interventions. Implementation of each consists of two concurrent strategies: videotaping of mother and baby followed by discussion with a nurse specialist every 3 months and weekly guided use of """"""""Myself and My Baby"""""""", a workbook of mother and baby activities. The content of the post-videotape discussion and the workbook activities differ based on a priori protocols, with the synchrony intervention focused on maternal sensitive response and infant cues, and the child care intervention focused on health. Outcome variables measured include: bi-directional maternal and infant attachment, parent-child interaction, parenting competency, and child development. ? ?
