Investigation of Child Maltreatment Risk and SafeCare Outcomes

Child maltreatment is a global concern with numerous societal implications. In the US alone, more than 6 million reports of child abuse are made every year. Victims often experience problems with physical, emotional, and mental aspects of development which have been linked to numerous deleterious effects, including difficulty coping with stress and maintaining positive relationships. Due to the prevalence of child maltreatment, research has focused on the development of intervention programs to improve parenting skills and foster positive relationships between children and their caregivers. SafeCare is an in-home parent coaching program developed for parents of children 0-5 years old. Health, Safety, and Planned Activities Training (PAT) modules are completed in weekly sessions, with program duration lasting between 18-20 weeks. Prior to training, parents are asked to complete the Parent-Child Conflict Tactics Scales (PC-CTS), a 34 item questionnaire with three subscales: nonviolent discipline, psychological aggression, and physical assault. Participants are assessed at the end of each module. This study focused on child PAT (cPAT) and infant PAT (iPAT) scores which were calculated as a percentage of items completed satisfactorily out of either 10 cPAT or 4 iPAT applicable items. This study examined the relationship between parents’ baseline scores on the psychological aggression and physical assault subscales of the PC-CTS and PAT outcomes, controlling for baseline PAT scores and parental education level. Participants included a diverse (56.1% Caucasian/White, 24.4% Black/African American, 12.2% Hispanic, 4.9% Native American, and 2.4% Other) sample of N=41 parents (6 males and 35 females, Mage= 32.7, SD= 9.46) recruited following involvement with Child Protective Services. Multiple regression analysis was used to predict PAT outcomes from parental education, PC-CTS and PAT baseline scores. Results suggest that neither PC-CTS score nor parental education level significantly predicted outcomes, F(3, 37) = 8.181, p \u3c .000, R2 = .399. Baseline PAT scores significantly predicted PAT outcomes, p = .000. Participants who appeared to be most at-risk for child maltreatment behaviors were hypothesized to demonstrate the most gains in PAT scores. Failure to observe the predicted trend may be due to low sample size, or may highlight the variability in baseline PAT scores irrespective of PC-CTS scores