Program Profile: Criando con Amor: Promoviendo Armonía y Superación (CAPAS)

This program includes two versions of a culturally adapted parenting intervention for immigrant Latino populations. The program is rated Effective. Both versions of the intervention were found to have a statistically significant impact on improving parenting practices, compared with the control group. Only the enhanced intervention had a positive, statistically significant effect on child internalizing behaviors. Neither had a statistically significant effect on externalizing behavior.

An Effective rating implies that implementing the program is likely to result in the intended outcome(s).

This program's rating is based on evidence that includes at least one high-quality randomized controlled trial.

Program Goals/Target Population

Criando con Amor: Promoviendo Armonía y Superación (CAPAS), a culturally adapted version of GenerationPMTO (Parent Management Training Oregon), is a parent-training program for Latino immigrant parents whose children exhibit mild-to- moderate behavioral problems. The five primary goals of the program are to 1) promote parent–child positive involvement, 2) help children develop prosocial skills, 3) decrease children’s deviant behavior with effective discipline, 4) enhance parental supervision, and 5) help family members negotiate agreements (i.e., problem solving).

The first version of the program, CAPAS-Original (CA), is designed to incorporate two salient cultural values: 1) superación (increasing educational attainment and achievement beyond the parents’ levels), and 2) educación (raising children to be competent and respectful adults) with the specific parenting practices of Latino immigrants (Domenech Rodríguez et al. 2011; Baumann et al. 2014). The second version, CAPAS-Enhanced (CE), is designed to increase the program’s focus on cultural and contextual issues such as the impact of immigration challenges and biculturalism on the parenting experiences of immigrant Latino families.

Program Components

The CA intervention closely adheres to the GenerationPMTO program, which includes five core components: 1) skill encouragement, 2) problem-solving, 3) positive involvement, 4) limit setting, and 5) monitoring. The skill encouragement component involves encouraging positive behavior that promote prosocial skills and cooperation while preventing and reducing the development of mild, moderate, or severe conduct problems. The problem-solving component consists of collaboratively identifying solutions for unmet family needs and problems. The positive involvement component involves promoting close relationships between parents and youth. The limit setting component involves effectively disciplining children through use of mild, short, and consistent consequences for misbehavior. The monitoring component consists of regularly scheduled check-ins with children.

The CA intervention also includes the following supporting skills:

1. Effective communication: Parents listen to and respect each family member’s opinions and allow for compromise.
2. Emotional regulation: Parents control their emotions when interacting with their children.
3. Clear directions: Parents provide clear instructions, so their children know what is expected of them.
4. School success: Parents promote and support their children’s academic performance.
5. Mindfulness: Parents are attentive, nonreactive, and nonjudgmental in interactions with their children.

Consistent with GenerationPMTO, CA is delivered in 12 sessions over a 12-week period in both individual and group formats. However, cultural experts, translators, and other consultants examined the GenerationPMTO program manual and supportive materials and modified the program for linguistic appropriateness and cultural relevance in language and content. Culturally relevant expressions were also included in the adaption of role-play scripts (Parra-Cardona et al. 2016).

The CE intervention included all the sessions of CA intervention as well as two additional culture-specific sessions that related to immigration and biculturalism. During these training sessions, parents discuss immigration-related challenges and benefits and strategies for coping with discrimination related to immigration status. Parents also discuss the “culture gap” that exists between generations, with the promotion of biculturalism as a useful solution to addressing these issues (Parra-Cardona et al. 2011).

Because two culture-specific components were added to the CE intervention, two additional parenting skills sessions (motivational behavior modeling and problem-solving specific challenges) were added to the CA curriculum to ensure that the two interventions were equal in length and amount of training provided.

Key Personnel

Both versions of CAPAS are led by both a cultural adaption specialist, who is Latino/a, fully bilingual, and a resident of the target community and a GenerationPMTO trained expert with direct knowledge of the target population and 6 years of experience delivering the intervention to Latino/a families with young children (Parra-Cardona et al. 2018).

Additional Information

CAPAS is a culturally adapted version of GenerationPMTO, which can also be found on the CrimeSolutions website: https://www.crimesolutions.ojp.gov/ratedprograms/596

Study 1

Parra-Cardona and colleagues (2017a) used a randomized control design to evaluate the effectiveness of the two culturally adapted versions of GenerationPMTO: Criando con Amor: Promoviendo Armonía y Superación (CAPAS)-Original (CA) and CAPAS-Enhanced (CE). The sample comprised 103 families randomly assigned to one of the culturally adapted interventions, or to a control group. The intervention included 12 sessions over 12 weeks.

Recruitment strategies targeted key community settings with high Latino presence such as faith-based organizations, health care settings, and mental health offices. Families were required to meet the following criteria to be eligible for the study: 1) live in single or two-parent families at the time of the study, 2) identify themselves as first generation Latina/o or Hispanic, 3) be Spanish-speaking, 4) be 18 years of age or older, and 5) report financial adversity as confirmed by a family income not higher than 40 percent of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) poverty guidelines. Eight parenting groups were recruited to participate in four cohorts. Enrolled participants were randomly assigned to one of the three conditions. Computer-generated randomization involved blocking on one of the four recruitment cohorts and age of the target child—younger (5–8) versus older (9 and above).

Thirty-six families (66 participants) were assigned to the CAPAS-Original (CA) intervention. Of these 66, 36 were mothers, and 30 were fathers. Across the 36 families, there were 14 girls and 22 boys. The average number of target children per household was 2.69, and the average age was 9.44. On average, the parents were 35.97 years old, had 9.38 years of education, and had been living in the United States for an average of 15.04 years. Most of the parents (59) were originally from Mexico. The annual family income was below $20,000 for 41.7 percent of the families, and 25 percent had an income between $21,000 and $30,000.

The control group included 32 families with 59 participants, 32 mothers and 27 fathers and 17 girls and 15 boys. The average number of target children per household was 3.10, and the average age was 9.16. On average, parents were 36.52 years old, had 7.87 years of education, and had been living in the United States for average of 14.80 years. Most of the parents (55) were originally from Mexico. The annual family income was below $20,000 for 25 percent, and 37.5 percent had an income between $21,000 and $30,000. There were no statistically significant differences in average parent age, parents’ years living in the United States, average age or gender of target children, or number of children per household across the CA, CE, and control conditions.

Data was collected from assessments that were administered preintervention, postintervention, and at a 6-month follow up. Assessments were completed either at home or at a local site chosen by the participant (e.g., at church). Participants were given the choice to complete measures in Spanish or English. All participants elected to complete measures in Spanish. One child per family was identified as the focal child. Child outcomes included the focal child’s internalizing and externalizing behaviors, measured by the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL; Achenbach 1991). Parenting outcomes were measured using scales adapted from Martinez and Eddy (2005) through collaboration between bilingual and bicultural PMTO-trained researchers (Domenech Rodriguez et al. 2013). Parenting outcomes included skills encouragement, limit-setting, supervision, problem solving, and positive involvement. The researchers used multilevel growth modeling to examine the effects of the three intervention conditions on changes in outcomes. The researchers did not conduct subgroup analyses.

Study 2

Parra-Cardona and colleagues (2017b) also evaluated the CAPAS Enhanced intervention. This evaluation used the same methods and measured the same outcomes as Study 1 (Parra-Cardona et al. 2017a). The CAPAS-Enhanced (CE) group comprised 35 families with 64 participants. Of these 64, 35 were mothers, and 29 were fathers. Across the 35 families, there were 18 girls and 17 boys. The average number of target children per household was 2.63, and the average age was 8.66. On average, the parents were 36.97 years old, had 8.72 years of education, and had been living in the United States for an average of 14.11 years. Most of the parents (57) were originally from Mexico. The annual family income was below $20,000 for 22.9 percent of participating families, and 34.3 percent had an income of between $21,000 and $30,000. The control group from Study 1 served as the control group for Study 2. All assessments, outcome measures, and statistical analyses used in Study 1 were also used in Study 2. The researchers did not conduct subgroup analyses.

The original GenerationPMTO certification process can take up to 2 years to complete. However, for the Criando con Amor: Promoviendo Armonía y Superación (CAPAS) program, interventionists were trained in the core components during two, 5-day intensive trainings. Thus, the study authors only consider the culturally adapted CAPAS intervention to be GenerationPMTO-informed. To aid in community buy-in, the CAPAS-Original and CAPAS-Enhanced programs were delivered in the building of a local religious organization widely recognized and trusted by the Latino community (Parra Cardona et al. 2012).

These sources were used in the development of the program profile:

These sources were used in the development of the program profile: