Child Protection

This is a home-visitation program that aims to prevent and address factors associated with child abuse and neglect. The program is rated Promising. Parents in the SafeCare group demonstrated statistically significant decreases in depression symptoms and risk of child protective services recidivism, compared with parents in the control group. However, there were no statistically significant differences in the risk of child physical abuse among a sample of American Indian parents.

This is a police–school partnership intervention that seeks to reduce antisocial and truant behaviors among youth and increase their willingness to attend school. This program is rated Promising. The results show a statistically significant positive effect on truancy for program participants. Students who participate in the program are less likely to miss school and more likely to report being willing to attend school, compared with students who do not participate.

This program is a comprehensive, home-based, therapeutic intervention for high-risk families with children ages 6–36 months. The program is rated No Effects. Although children in the program showed statistically significantly reduced externalizing problems, there was no impact on other outcomes, including internalizing problems, dysregulation, parent–child dysfunction, and parent distress. Overall, the preponderance of evidence suggests the program did not have an impact on children or parents.

This is a child sexual abuse (CSA) prevention training program to educate adults, such as childcare professionals, to prevent, recognize, and react to CSA. The program is rated Promising. Participants who received the in-person and web-based training demonstrated a statistically significant higher level of CSA knowledge and a greater number of preventative behaviors, compared with the wait-list control group. There was no statistically significant difference found between groups in CSA attitudes.

This is an antiviolence program designed to prevent child maltreatment by providing education, resources, and support to parents to improve their parenting skills. The program is rated Promising. Treatment group parents reported a statistically significant reduction in using harsh discipline strategies and increase in appropriate developmental expectations, compared with control group parents at the 3-month follow up. However, there was no statistically significant difference in nurturing.

This is a family-based intervention designed to prevent and treat youth behavior problems. The program is rated Promising. Intervention families showed a statistically significant greater likelihood of being engaged and retained in treatment, and intervention youth showed statistically significant greater improvement in conduct disorder and socialized aggression. There were no statistically significant differences in adolescent alcohol use or improved family functioning.

This is a home-visitation program for expectant and new parents, which was designed to prevent child abuse or neglect. The program is rated No Effects. Treatment group mothers showed statistically significant improvements on some outcomes, such as parental stress and discipline strategies, compared with control group mothers. However, there were no statistically significant differences between the groups in neglect, foster care placement, or substantiated child protective services reports.

This program addresses family functioning and parental behavior to reduce child abuse, neglect, and external placement. The program is rated Promising. Compared with the control group, treatment parents and children showed statistically significant improvements in functioning, treatment parents showed significant improvements in social support, and treatment children had a lower likelihood of receiving external placement. However, there were no significant differences between groups on abuse.

This is a family-based intervention for Hispanic families that seeks to improve family functioning and decrease adolescent substance use. The program is rated Effective. Treatment group families reported a statistically significant reduction in youth substance use, compared with control group families. However, there were mixed results regarding family functioning and behavior problems, and no statistically significant effect on youth’s school bonding or academic achievement.

This program is for parents whose children are wards of the state. The program is rated Effective. Intervention parents had statistically significant improvements in treatment outcomes and lower rates of rearrest, compared with control parents. Children of intervention parents experienced statistically significant improvements in child welfare outcomes, compared with children of control group participants. There were no significant differences between groups for placement stability.