The Building Healthy Children (BHC) home-visiting preventive intervention was designed to provide concrete support and evidence-based intervention to young mothers and their infants who were at heightened risk for child maltreatment and poor developmental outcomes. This paper presents two studies examining the short- and long-term effectiveness of this program at promoting positive parenting and maternal mental health, while preventing child maltreatment and harsh parenting. It also examines the intervention's sustained effect on child symptomatology and self-regulation. At baseline, young mothers and their infants were randomly assigned to receive BHC or Enhanced Community Standard. Families were assessed longitudinally across four time points. Data were also collected from the child's teacher at follow-up. Mothers who received BHC evidenced significant reductions in depressive symptoms at mid-intervention, which was associated with improvements in parenting self-efficacy and stress as well as decreased child internalizing and externalizing symptoms at postintervention. The follow-up study found that BHC mothers exhibited less harsh and inconsistent parenting, and marginally less psychological aggression. BHC children also exhibited less externalizing behavior and self-regulatory difficulties across parent and teacher report. Following the impactful legacy of Dr. Edward Zigler, these findings underline the importance of early, evidence-based prevention to promote well-being in high-risk children and families.

中文翻译：

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培养健康的儿童：对高危年轻家庭的预防性干预

建设健康儿童 (BHC) 家访预防干预措施旨在为遭受儿童虐待和发育不良风险较高的年轻母亲及其婴儿提供具体支持和循证干预措施。本文介绍了两项研究，检验该计划在促进积极养育和母亲心理健康，同时防止虐待儿童和严厉养育方面的短期和长期有效性。它还检查了干预措施对儿童症状和自我调节的持续影响。在基线时，年轻母亲及其婴儿被随机分配接受 BHC 或增强社区标准。对四个时间点的家庭进行纵向评估。随访时还从孩子的老师那里收集了数据。接受 BHC 的母亲在干预中期的抑郁症状显着减轻，这与育儿自我效能感和压力的改善以及干预后儿童内化和外化症状的减少有关。后续研究发现，BHC 母亲表现出较少严厉和不一致的养育方式，并且心理攻击性也略有减少。根据家长和老师的报告，BHC 儿童还表现出较少的外化行为和自我调节困难。继爱德华·齐格勒博士的影响深远的遗产之后，这些发现强调了早期循证预防对于促进高危儿童和家庭福祉的重要性。