Online Training for Foster and Primary Parents of Neglected Children

为被忽视儿童的寄养父母和主要父母提供在线培训

• 批准号: 8591074
• 负责人: Richard J. Delaney
• 金额: $ 26.8万
• 依托单位: NORTHWEST MEDIA, INC.
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2013
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2013-07-01 至 2015-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/8591074
• 关键词: Address; Antidotes; Aptitude; Attitude; Behavior; Biological; Caregivers; Child; Child Behavior; Communication; Complement; Conflict (Psychology); Data; Development; Educational process of instructing; Emotional; Family; Feasibility Studies; Feedback; Feeling; Fostering; Friction; Funding; Goals; Intervention; Interview; Lead; Learning; Life; Measures; Mental Health; Outcome; Parent-Child Relations; Parenting behavior; Parents; Persons; Phase; Play; Population; Preparation; Problem behavior; Process; Psychotherapy; Randomized; Reading; Research; Resources; Role; Small Business Innovation Research Grant; Social Interaction; Substance Use Disorder; Surveys; Testing; Therapeutic; Thinking; Touch sensation; Training; Training Programs; Work; addiction; base; care systems; child neglect; comparison group; court personnel; design; experience; externalizing behavior; foster care; foster child; foster parent; improved; innovation; maternal depression; phase 2 study; prevent; psychologic; public health relevance; response; scaffold; success; theories; virtual

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): In this Phase I we will develop and evaluate the first unit of an online serious game for foster and primary parents of neglected children. The goal of the training is to learn how parents in these two historically compartmentalized roles can improve their parenting by working cooperatively. Research shows that cross-training strategies can optimize the chances that the foster child will be successfully reunified with the primary family, a central goal of the foster care system. The central psychological construct of our approach is the parental reflective function, an emerging concept for understanding and improving social interactions that is being applied to parenting. In this specific context, it refes to parents' aptitude for understanding their child's and their own internal states (thoughts, feelings, intentions) and how these relate to the occurrence and reduction of externalizing child behavior problems. Our approach uses a serious game format, with interactive video feedback of prerecorded parent-child scenarios, to motivate parents to recognize and utilize the parental reflective function during parent-child interactions. In the first unit of the game developed in Phase I, titled In Touch: A Day in the Life, primary and foster parents work in pairs to learn to read and respond to a virtual parent's own and their child's internal states as they navigate a typical day of interactions fraught with possible friction, as presented in dramatized video segments. The game format is loosely based on the popular TV game show, Family Feud. In our version, parents will be paired into dyads-one foster and one primary parent. In the game, parents try to match the most frequent survey responses to questions regarding the parents' and child's internal states in the video segments. Answers to the survey will be generated by 20 experienced foster parents. Parents play the game and participate in the feasibility study at FosterParentCollege.com(R), an online training center developed by Northwest Media, Inc. via SBIR funding. Communication in each dyad will take place via a discussion board. We will carefully evaluate whether the serious game significantly improves parents' understanding of the reflective function, above and beyond what they would be expected to learn about it in a standard behavior management training program. Parents will be randomly assigned to teams, pairs, and experimental conditions. The treatment group will view a behavior management training as well as the serious game training, while the comparison group will view only the behavior management training. We will also complete the preliminary analysis of a central measure of the parental reflective function currently being developed in this field, the Parent Development Interview-Revised Short Version, which will be used in the Phase II study. In Phase II we will produce six additional training units of the game that covers: 1) Understanding and Addressing Children's Externalizing Behavior Problems; 2) Reflective Function as Antidote to Addictions, Domestic Conflict, and Maternal Depression; 3) Reflective Parenting and Emotional Scaffolding of Children; 4) How In Touch Parenting Can Augment and Complement Other Training Approaches; 5) A Primer for Children on Understanding and Articulating Their Inner World to Caregivers; and 6) Teaching Ancillary Professionals, Agency Staff, and Court Personnel About Reflective Parenting.

描述（由申请人提供）：在第一阶段，我们将为被忽视儿童的养父母和主要父母开发和评估在线严肃游戏的第一个单元。培训的目的是了解扮演这两种历史上划分角色的父母如何通过合作来改善他们的养育方式。研究表明，交叉培训策略可以最大程度地提高寄养儿童成功与主要家庭团聚的机会，这是寄养系统的核心目标。我们方法的核心心理结构是父母反思功能，这是一个用于理解和改善社会互动的新兴概念，并应用于养育子女。在这个特定的背景下，它指的是父母理解孩子和他们自己的内部状态（思想、感受、意图）的能力，以及这些状态与外化儿童行为问题的发生和减少之间的关系。我们的方法采用严肃的游戏形式，通过预先录制的亲子场景的互动视频反馈，来激励父母在亲子互动中认识和利用父母反思功能。在第一阶段开发的游戏的第一个单元中，名为“接触：生活中的一天”，主要父母和寄养父母两人一组，学习阅读虚拟父母及其孩子的内部状态，并对其做出反应，因为他们驾驭的是典型的父母和孩子的内部状态。正如戏剧化视频片段中所呈现的那样，这一天的互动充满了可能的摩擦。该游戏格式大致基于流行的电视游戏节目《Family Feud》。在我们的版本中，父母将被配对成二人组——一名寄养父母和一名主要父母。在游戏中，父母尝试将最常见的调查回答与视频片段中有关父母和孩子的内部状态的问题进行匹配。该调查的答案将由 20 位经验丰富的养父母提供。家长可以在 FosterParentCollege.com(R) 上玩游戏并参与可行性研究，FosterParentCollege.com(R) 是 Northwest Media, Inc. 通过 SBIR 资助开发的在线培训中心。每个二人组中的沟通将通过讨论板进行。我们将仔细评估严肃的游戏是否显着提高了父母对反思功能的理解，超出了他们在标准行为管理培训计划中期望了解的内容。家长将被随机分配到小组、配对和实验条件中。治疗组将观看行为管理训练以及严肃的游戏训练，而对照组将仅观看行为管理训练。我们还将完成对该领域目前正在开发的父母反思功能的核心衡量标准的初步分析，即父母发展访谈修订版简短版本，该模型将用于第二阶段研究。 在第二阶段，我们将制作游戏的六个额外培训单元，其中包括：1）理解和解决儿童的外化行为问题； 2）反思功能作为毒瘾、家庭冲突和母亲抑郁症的解毒剂； 3）反思性养育和儿童情感脚手架； 4) 亲密育儿如何增强和补充其他培训方法； 5) 儿童入门读物，了解并向看护者表达自己的内心世界； 6) 向辅助专业人员、机构工作人员和法院工作人员教授反思性养育知识。