Based on Research Conducted at OSLC
A test of the impact of parent management training on children of incarcerated parents.
Project Overview
A majority of state and federal prisoners in the U.S. have at least one child under the age of 18 years. Parental criminality, arrests, and incarceration are at least modest predictors of violent and serious child delinquency, and there is evidence that the impact of parent criminality on child antisocial behavior is mediated by parenting practices. A variety of non-standardized programs aimed at improving inmate parenting practices have been delivered in U.S. prisons, but rigorous scientific knowledge on the impact of such programs on inmates and children has been lacking. To begin to remedy this lack of knowledge, we conducted a randomized preventive intervention trial to test the impact of parent management training on the children of incarcerated parents. Incarcerated parents (n = 400) were randomized into a parent management training preventive intervention (PMT) or services as usual. PMT combines current standard-of-practice prison parent education curricula with state of the art, empirically based parent management training content and methods. Collected data allowed for an examination of whether a theoretically and empirically based, group-delivered parent management training program for incarcerated parents positively impacts the behavior, well-being, and relationships of the inmates, their children, and the caregivers of their children while the inmate is inside and outside of prison; and whether any changes in child and caregiver behavior, well-being, and relationships are mediated by intervention-initiated changes in inmate parenting practices.
Year Project Began: 2003Funder: National Institute of Mental Health