Resa Matthew, MS¹, Eddie McCormick¹, and Min Qi Wang, PhD². (1) McFarland Institute, 8601 Georgia Ave., Suite 601, Silver Spring, MD 20910, 301-565-2035, rmatthew@mcfarlandinstitute.org, (2) Department of Public and Community Health, University of Maryland, CHHP, College Park, MD 20742

The literature indicates the benefits of family focused interventions in preventing child’s problem behaviors. The purpose of this project was to evaluate the outcome variables of the Parenting and Family Strengthening Initiative sponsored by the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention (CSAP). A total of thirty-two study sites implemented an evidenced-based intervention program for enhancing the capacity of local communities to deliver best practices in effective parenting and family programs. Participants (N=558) were parents with children 3-18 years of age who were at risk for behavior problems, delinquency and substance use. The core measures included items assessing the constructs of family resilience, family conflict, family attachment, and family cohesion. The analyses consisted of two steps: 1) evaluating the psychometrics of the constructs using factor analysis and alpha coefficient analysis, and 2) assessing the differences of the outcome measures before and after the intervention using analysis of variance (ANOVA). The results from factor analyses indicated that some subscales of these constructs existed. The alpha reliability further confirmed the subscales. The results for the ANOVA indicated a significant improvement in majority of the family strengthening construct measures by various intervention programs, p<.05, and the explained variance measured by eta squared appeared to be moderate. The findings suggest that the Initiative is effective in improving the family functioning as measured by family resilience, family cohesion, family conflict, and family attachment.

This study was funded by the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention

Learning Objectives:

• 1. Identify the content of the family focused interventions in Parenting and Family Strengthening Initiative
• 2. Identify the constructs measured by this intervention as well as psychometric of the constructs.
• 3. Identify the effectiveness of the Parenting and Family Strengthening Initiative
• 4. Articulate the implications for intervention and prevention research which are suggested by the study findings.

Keywords: Family Involvement,

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.