Web-Based Marriage Education for Foster, Kinship, and Adoptive Couples

项目描述（由申请人提供）：本项目的目的是开发和评估一个针对资源（即寄养、亲属关系和收养）父母的专业在线婚姻教育项目。这个项目被称为预防和关系增强项目（PREP），是一个经过充分研究、高效且广泛使用的课程，它已经被改编用于某些特定人群，尽管不是专门针对资源夫妻。寄养夫妇、亲属关系夫妇和收养夫妇面临着巨大的挑战，这些挑战可能而且确实会对他们的婚姻产生重大影响。标准的家庭背景和干预的动力并不适用于这些夫妇。然而，针对这些父母的特殊需要和情况量身定制的婚姻教育可以为他们提供急需的社会沟通技能，以避免他们婚姻关系中的负面互动模式，并将他们的期望引导到健康的框架中。在第一阶段，我们成功开发并测试了PREP项目的前两个模块。研究结果有力地支持了在线版本在这一人群中的有效性。在第二阶段，我们将生产另外13个适应这一人口的模块来完成该计划。我们将以全国100对寄养、收养和亲属关系夫妇为样本，对完整的、完成的项目进行评估，评估内容包括知识、沟通和冲突管理技能、健康婚姻的各种指标，以及父母和子女适应能力的测试。合适的是，受试者的招募，以及培训干预的实施和测试，都将在网上完成。公共卫生相关性：参与该项目的受试者将获得重要信息和技能，以帮助他们了解和管理寄养、收养和亲属关系夫妇婚姻生活中的独特挑战。从而提高了资源子女的婚姻质量、养育质量、家庭生活质量、资源子女的适应质量和安置稳定性。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The purpose of this project is to develop and evaluate a specialized online version of a marital education program for resource (i.e., foster, kinship, and adoptive) parents. The program, called Prevention and Relationship Enhancement Program (PREP), is a well-researched, highly effective, and widely used curriculum that has been adapted already for use with certain select populations, though not specifically with resource couples. Foster, kinship, and adoptive couples face extraordinary challenges that can, and do, have a large impact on their marriages. Standard family contexts and dynamics for intervention do not generalize to these couples. However, marital education tailored to the special needs and circumstances of these parents could provide them with much needed social-communication skills to avoid negative interaction patterns in their marital relationship and to steer their expectations into a healthy framework. In Phase I we successfully developed and tested the first two modules from the PREP program. Findings provided strong support for the efficacy of the online version with this population. In Phase II we will produce another 13 modules adapted to this population to complete the program. We will evaluate the full, finished program with a national sample of 100 foster, adoptive, and kinship couples on measures of knowledge, communication and conflict management skills, a variety of indicators of a healthy marriage, and a test of parent and child adjustment. Fittingly, the recruitment of subjects, as well as the implementation and testing of the training intervention, will all be done online. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Subjects participating in this project will gain important information and skills to help them understand and manage the unique challenges of married life for foster, adoptive, and kinship couples. As a result, the quality of the marriage, parenting, family life, the resource child's adjustment, and the stability of the placement could improve.