Marion S. Forgatch, Ph.D.

Research Scientist (Emeritus)
Oregon Social Learning Center

• Implementing Parent Management Training in Norway (PI, Norwegian Center for Studies on Behavioral Problems and Innovative Practices)
• Oregon Divorced Fathers Study (Co-I, NICHD

Primary research and clinical interests

Marion S. Forgatch, PhD, Senior Scientist Emerita, spent much of her career working with the group that eventually became OSLC. She developed and tested programs for families whose children are at-risk for substance abuse and adjustment problems. Her program Parenting through Change (PTC) is recognized as an "Effective Program" in the National Registry of Effective Programs and Practices (NREPP). For the past 10 years, Dr. Forgatch and her team have adapted and applied PTC for use with diverse populations, including non-English speaking Latinos, mothers living in shelters to escape homelessness or violence, parents with severely emotionally disturbed children, and parents whose children have been removed for reasons of abuse/neglect. Currently the program is being adapted for soldiers reintegrating home following service in the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan. She and her team have conducted several large-scale implementation projects including: PMTO statewide in Michigan in Community Mental Health (CMH) Centers for severely emotionally disturbed children; PMTO nationwide in Norway, Iceland, the Netherlands, and PMTO in CMH and Juvenile Justice Centers in Detroit-Wayne County in Michigan. An additional focus for Dr. Forgatch’s work includes the development and application of direct observation measures of family interaction to evaluate changes in family process and intervention sessions to evaluate fidelity in implementing the PMTO model. Forgatch has co-authored numerous journal articles, book chapters, audio and video tapes for parents, and two books. She has received two awards from Society of Prevention Research: Friend of the Early Career Prevention Network in 2003 and the Award for International Collaborative Prevention Research in 2008 and is a fellow of the Association for Psychological Science.

Selected publications

Forgatch, M. S., DeGarmo, D. S., & Beldavs, Z. (2005). An efficacious theory-based intervention for stepfamilies. Behavior Therapy, 36(4), 357-365.

Ogden, T., Forgatch, M. S., Askeland, E., Patterson, G. R., & Bullock, B. M. (2005). Implementation of parent management training at the national level: The case of Norway. Journal of Social Work Practice, 19(3), 319-331.

DeGarmo, D. S., & Forgatch, M. S. (2005). Early development of delinquency within divorced families: Evaluating a randomized preventive intervention trial. Developmental Science, 8(3), 229-239.

Forgatch, M. S., Patterson, G. R., & DeGarmo, D. S. (2005). Evaluating fidelity: Predictive validity for a measure of competent adherence to the Oregon model of parent management training (PMTO). Behavior Therapy, 36, 3-13.

DeGarmo, D. S., Patterson, G. R., & Forgatch, M. S. (2004). How do outcomes in a specified parent training intervention maintain or wane over time? Prevention Science, 5(2), 73-89.

Forgatch, M. S., Bullock, B. M., & Patterson, G. R. (2004). From theory to practice: Increasing effective parenting through role-play. In H. Steiner (Ed.), Handbook of mental health interventions in children and adolescents: An integrated developmental approach (pp. 782-814). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Patterson, G. R., & Forgatch, M. S. (2005). Parents and adolescents living together: The basics (2nd Edition) (Vol. I). Champaign, IL: Research Press.