In this section
Parenting skills for adoptive families
Parenting Skills programmes have been shown to be helpful for a range of difficulties experienced by biological families (see Scott, 2002: Moran et al, 2004 for reviews)
During interviews with new adoptive parents, gathered as part of the Attachment and Adoption Study, it became clear that many parents were struggling to cope with complex and challenging behaviours exhibited by their late-placed children. These children had all suffered early abuse or neglect, been removed from their biological families and had spent time within the care system. They were placed with their new adoptive parents between the ages of 4 - 8 years and tended to ‘import’ into these new families various levels of difficulty.
Methodology and results
In 2001 The Anna Freud Centre in conjunction with Coram Family, applied to The Headley Trust for funding to develop a parenting-skills programme specifically tailored to address the issues faced by adoptive families. As our starting point we took The Incredible Years programme by Prof Carolyn Webster-Stratton because of its well developed evidence base. Funding allowed The Incredible Years parenting programme to be offered to adopters at Coram (and from elsewhere) by Norma Sargent, the post-adoption worker at Coram who was trained in The Incredible Years. During the 10 weekly meetings a researcher from The Anna Freud Centre sat in on each session and kept detailed notes of issues which arose which were specific to adoption and not covered by the Incredible Years material. This process was repeated and then some adaptations to the training material were introduced.
For instance, one of the key components of The Incredible Years programme is to encourage parents to give attention to their child during 10 minutes of non-directive play each day. This builds positive interactions between them.
However, the play of previously abused and traumatised children can be limited, stereotypic, repetitive, or descend into catastrophic, destructive, violent and occasionally sexualised scenarios. (Main and Solomon, 1986) Material was developed for both trainers and parents, to help groups think about how to deal with this sort of material, what it might mean for the child, and how best the parent should respond. By developing this additional material it was possible for parents to maintain the 10 minutes of daily play in ways which were appropriate and helpful.
In total, 4 groups were completed and the additional material developed and included. Adoption specific points were added to material on Play, Praise and Rewards, Limit setting and ‘Time Out’, and a set of addendums produced to be used in conjunction with The Incredible Years programme by trainers who had undergone The Incredible Years training. One day courses in the material were presented intermittently at The Anna Freud Centre by Norma Sargent and colleagues to help adoption workers think through these issues.
Thirty five parents, parenting a total of 36 children completed the groups. The groups were evaluated using The Parenting Stress Index (PSI Abidin, 1986) and the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ, Goodman, 1994) prior to and at the end of each group (which ran for 10 weeks).
The evaluation demonstrated that after the training parents felt significantly less stressed by their child, felt more competent and found their child more rewarding. The parents also reported significantly lower levels of overall concern about their child on the SDQ, and reports of child hyperactivity and conduct disordered behaviours also reduced.
Further information
A full description of how the intervention programme was adapted for adoptive families can be found in:
Henderson, K and Sargent, N. (2005) ‘Developing the Incredible Years Webster-Stratton parenting skills training programme for use with adoptive families. Adoption and Fostering, Vol 29, Number 4 pp34-44
References
Abidin, R. (1986) Parenting Stress Index: Manual (2nd ed) Charlottesville, VA: Paediatric Psychology Press.
Goodman, R. (1994) A modified version of the Rutter Parent Questionnaire including extra items on children’s strengths: A research note’ Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 35, pp1483-44
Moran, P. Ghate, D., and van der Merwe, A., (2004) ‘What works in Parenting Support? A Review of the International Evidence’. London, Policy Research Bureau
Scott, S. (2002) ‘Parenting Training Programmes in Rutter, M and Taylor, E. (eds) Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (fourth edition) Oxford: Blackwell
Webster-Stratton – see www.theincredibleyears.com
