Introduction

Parent support groups are a widely adopted form of child abuse and neglect prevention. Parents Anonymous began as a family-strengthening organization and launched a parent support program that provides direct services to parents to improve parenting and coping skills, strengthen social connections, and build resiliency. A quasi-experimental design was used to examine the effectiveness of Parents Anonymous in improving outcomes in child safety and permanency in two large California counties.

Methods

We compared subsequent child welfare involvement outcomes between a sample of parents who received Parents Anonymous services to a sample who did not, all of whom had been involved in the child welfare system (N=17,482). The samples were identified using exact matching. A total of eight outcomes were evaluated using a binary logistic regression model: subsequent child welfare outcomes of referral, investigation, substantiation, or child removal within two post-treatment periods (six and 12 months). Program impact was assessed with a binary logistic regression model. For double-robust analysis, variables that were used in the matching process were also used in the impact analysis. The independent variables included treatment status, age of youngest child in days, income, number of prior investigations, and whether or not the index referral was substantiated for physical abuse. Baseline equivalence was established between the two samples prior to the impact analysis.

Results

Two outcomes were statistically significant (p ≤ .05). A referral for child abuse or neglect and a substantiated child abuse or neglect finding were both significantly less likely in the treatment group than the comparison group at 12 months post-treatment. No other statistically significant results were identified in the analysis.

Conclusions

While there is more to learn about the program mechanisms of causality, the findings suggest that participation in Parents Anonymous may have a positive, long-term impact on improving child safety among parents involved in the child welfare system.

中文翻译：

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父母对子女安全和永久性的影响

介绍

父母支持小组是一种广泛采用的虐待和忽视儿童的形式。父母匿名组织起初是一个加强家庭的组织，并发起了一项父母支持计划，该计划向父母提供直接服务，以改善父母养育和应对技巧，加强社会联系并建立适应力。准实验设计用于检查“匿名父母”在改善加州两个大县的儿童安全和永久性方面的效果。

方法

我们比较了接受父母匿名服务的父母样本与未接受父母匿名服务的样本之间的后续儿童福利参与结果，这些样本都参与了儿童福利系统（N = 17,482）。使用精确匹配来识别样品。使用二元逻辑回归模型评估了总共八项结果：在两个治疗后时期（六个月和十二个月）内，转诊，调查，证实或遣散儿童的后续儿童福利结果。用二进制逻辑回归模型评估了计划的影响。对于双重健壮分析，在匹配过程中使用的变量也用于影响分析。独立变量包括治疗状态，天数最小的孩子的年龄，收入，之前的检查次数，以及索引引用是否因身体虐待而得到证实。在进行影响分析之前，在两个样本之间建立了基线当量。

结果

两种结果在统计学上显著（p ≤0.05）。在治疗后12个月，治疗组转诊因虐待或忽视儿童而确诊为虐待或忽视儿童的可能性均明显低于对照组。在分析中没有发现其他统计学上显着的结果。

结论

尽管有更多关于因果关系计划机制的知识，但研究结果表明，参与“父母匿名”活动可能对改善参与儿童福利系统的父母之间的儿童安全产生积极的长期影响。