The Effectiveness of Evidence-Based Attachment-Focused Parenting for Families with Young Children: Using Circle of Security in the Child Welfare System

Young children are overrepresented in child welfare systems nationally and in Florida. Critical achievements in brain development and the development of attachment to primary caregivers, both of which are important for socioemotional development, later self-regulation, and later learning, occur during children’s early years, suggesting that young children are particularly deserving of attention and intervention. In particular, there is a dire need for evidence-based parenting programs in child welfare systems. These programs should be focused on helping parents to better meet the needs of their young children and to examine their own issues in the context of parenting. As a result, this project examined the feasibility and effectiveness of using the Circle of Security (CoS) Parenting Intervention in Orange County, Florida. Through the creation of important connections with the local Early Childhood Court Initiative, the Community Based Care of Central Florida (CBC) lead agency, and related case management agencies, these agencies served as a conduit for recruiting parents who were child welfare-involved and particularly high risk. Sixty-five (65) culturally diverse parents (72.3% of whom were female and 27.7% of whom were male) with at least one child between the ages of 0 and 5 years participated in this project. As these parents faced particularly difficult challenges, attrition from the project was anticipated, although it was noteworthy that there were differential attrition rates across the comparison group and the CoS group. In particular, those parents assigned to the comparison group showed higher attrition than those parents assigned to the CoS group. In fact, parents in the comparison group were more likely to discontinue their participation when their perceptions of parents’ own responsibility for failure in parent-child interactions were significantly higher than those of parents who continued their participation. In contrast, parents in the CoS group were more likely to discontinue their participation when their own behavior problems, impulse control difficulties, and distress reactions to young children’s negative emotions were more problematic than those of parents who continued their participation. This finding alone emphasized the necessity of engaging parents and maintaining that engagement through whatever services are provided to them. This finding also emphasized the importance of parents having a well-constructed case plan of appropriate interventions to meet their needs. Further, parents demonstrated differential outcomes over an eight-week period depending on whether they were assigned to the comparison group or to the CoS group. Those parents in the comparison group demonstrated decreases in their lack of awareness regarding their emotion regulation difficulties and in their punitive parenting strategies (generally positive findings) but also showed decreases in their endorsements of emotion-focused and wish granting parenting strategies (generally problematic findings). In contrast, those parents in the CoS group demonstrated increases in their ratings of their impulse control difficulties, their limits in emotion regulation, and their lack of clarity regarding feelings (perhaps showing more recognition of where they might need future intervention work). They also demonstrated decreases in their ratings of punitive reactions and minimization parenting strategies as well as increases in their ratings of encouragement as a parenting strategy (generally positive findings). These findings highlighted that evidence-based attachment-focused parenting interventions, such as CoS, can promote added recognition of emotion regulation needs as well as improvements in parenting beyond the decreases in punitive parenting strategies that are expected when parents are referred to child welfare services. June 30, 2017 Principal Investigator: Kimberly Renk, PhD, Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology, University of Central Florida Key Project Staff: Neil W. Boris, MD, Consultant Irving Harris Infant Mental Health Training Director Florida State University’s Center for Prevention and Early Intervention Policy Ana Leon, PhD, Co-Investigator Professor of Social Work, University of Central Florida Funded through a contract with the Florida Institute for Child Welfare CONTENTS Abstract ...............................................................................................................................1..............................................................................................................................1 Project Description ..............................................................................................................2 Results.................................................................................................................................5 Participants .................................................................................................................... 5 Descriptive Statistics for Parents at the Start of their Participation ........................... 6 Differences Between CoS Group Parents and Comparison Group Parents at the Start of their Participation ..........................................................................................7 Child and Family Services Review (CFSR) Outcomes ............................................. 8 Differences in the Comparison Group at the Start of their Participation versus at the Close of their Participation ................................................................................10 Differences in the CoS Group at the Start of their Participation versus at the Close of their Participation ...................................................................................... 11 Differences between Those Parents Who Participated at Both Data Collection Periods (i.e., at the Start of their Participation and at the Close of Their Participation) Versus Those Who Did Not ...............................................................12 Feasibility of Circle of Security for Parents Who are Child Welfare Involved ............... 15 Discussion .........................................................................................................................16 Policy Recommendations ...........................................................................................................18 References ........................................................................................................................19 RESEARCH REPORT