Emotion-Focused Intervention for Mothers and Children Under Stress

描述（由申请人提供）：预防为重点的干预母亲和儿童团聚后，监狱这修订的R34申请是为了回应PAR-06-248“从干预发展到服务：探索性研究赠款。“大量的父母被监禁在刑事司法系统中，使人们更加关注他们的子女所面临的巨大挑战，现在他们的子女人数超过200万。与监禁有关的风险因素，包括父母与子女关系的破坏、生活安排的转变、对照顾者的经济和其他压力以及情绪困扰，使父母被监禁的儿童面临发展严重行为和情绪障碍的巨大风险。虽然有一些证据表明，父母犯罪对儿童适应不良的影响是由父母的做法调解，有几个方案，以促进积极的养育或支持被监禁的父母和他们的孩子从监狱释放后的团聚。因此，我们提出了一个为期三年的项目，以开发和试点多模式的情绪为重点的干预计划，以促进监禁母亲和儿童之间的情感联系和他们的个人情绪和行为调整。情感方案将通过加强母亲、儿童和儿童照顾者的情感技能，帮助家庭科普与从监狱回家过渡有关的负面情绪和经历，扩展现有的循证监狱实施的养育方案。同样，由于情绪调节困难与广泛的精神病理学有关，通过与情绪有关的养育实践促进儿童的情绪能力将使我们能够降低各种儿童和青少年困难的风险。在第一年，将制定和完善干预措施，并制定实施措施。在第2年和第3年，将对60名母亲及其6-8岁的孩子进行一项实验性试点研究（n=30情感集中干预; n=30积极育儿治疗比较）。将招募被监禁的母亲、她们的孩子和孩子的照顾者参加。情感计划将涉及学习技能，以增加母亲和儿童的情绪调节以及积极的父母情感社会化行为。干预组的家庭将在母亲出狱前后参加干预活动。参与者将在干预开始前、释放前干预后和释放后干预后接受评估。我们假设，增加父母的能力，既调节自己的情绪，并协助儿童与他们的情绪调节将增加健康的情绪和社会调整的可能性，为儿童在团聚阶段，并设置了一个阶段，随着时间的推移，积极的儿童结果。为预防为重点的干预母亲和儿童团聚后，监狱首席研究员：乔安吴肖特，博士。随着被监禁的父母人数继续增加，这些父母的子女面临着许多挑战，这些挑战强调了良好养育的重要性。被监禁的父母的孩子比同龄人更有可能经历情感和行为问题，而且监狱后支持父母和孩子的计划很少。该项目将通过教授母亲、照顾者和儿童健康的情感技能，帮助他们适应监狱外的生活。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Emotion-Focused Intervention for Mothers and Children Reuniting After Prison This revised R34 application is in response to PAR-06-248 "From Intervention Development to Services: Exploratory Research Grants." The substantial number of parents incarcerated in the criminal justice system has resulted in increased attention to the enormous challenges faced by their children, now numbering over two million. Risk factors associated with incarceration, including disruption of parent-child relationships, transitions in living arrangements, financial and other stressors on caregivers, and emotional distress put children of incarcerated parents at great risk for developing significant behavioral and emotional disorders. Though there is some evidence that the impact of parent criminality on child maladjustment is mediated by parenting practices, there are few programs to promote positive parenting or support the reunification of incarcerated parents and their children upon release from prison. Hence, we propose a three-year project to develop and pilot a multi-modal emotion-focused intervention program to foster both the emotional connection between incarcerated mothers and children and their individual emotional and behavioral adjustment. The emotion program will extend an existing evidence-informed prison-implemented parenting program by strengthening the emotional skills of mothers, children, and the children's caregivers to help the family cope with the negative emotions and experiences associated with the transition home from prison. As well, because emotion regulation difficulties are associated with a wide range of psychopathology, promoting children's emotional competence through emotion-related parenting practices will enable us to decrease risk for a wide- range of child and adolescent difficulties. In Year 1, the intervention will be developed and refined, and implementation measures will be developed. In Years 2 and 3, an experimental pilot study will be conducted with 60 mothers and their children ages 6-8 years (n=30 emotion-focused intervention; n=30 active parenting treatment comparison). Incarcerated mothers, their children, and their children's caregiver will be recruited to participate. The emotion program will involve learning skills to increase maternal and child emotion regulation as well as positive parent emotion socialization behaviors. Families in the intervention group will participate in intervention activities both before and after mothers' release from prison. Participants will be assessed prior to the beginning of the intervention, after the pre-release intervention, and after the post-release intervention. We hypothesize that increasing parents' ability to both regulate their own emotions and assist children with their regulation of emotions will increase the likelihood of healthy emotional and social adjustment for children in the reunification phase, and set the stage for positive child outcomes over time. For Emotion-Focused Intervention for Mothers and Children Reuniting After Prison Principal Investigator: Joann Wu Shortt, Ph.D. As the number of incarcerated parents continues to increase, the children of these parents face many challenges that emphasize the importance of good parenting. Children of incarcerated parents are more likely than their peers to experience emotional and behavior problems, and there are very few programs to support parents and children after prison. This project will help mothers, caregivers, and children adjust to life outside of prison by teaching them healthy emotional skills.