Child & Youth Care Forum最新文献

Background: Effortful control (EC) is a self-regulatory ability that is linked to many individual child outcomes and is influenced by ecological variables (e.g., family, parenting). The influence of neighborhood-level variables has not been thoroughly examined.

Objective: The present study examined poorer neighborhood quality as a predictor of EC development, and the moderating role of parenting in relation to poor neighborhood quality and EC development.

Method: Latent growth curve modeling analyses were used to assess changes in EC across time in a community sample (N = 796) of 4 year-olds. Subsequent analyses were run to determine the impact of neighborhood quality and the moderating role of parenting in relation to EC development.

Results: Analyses indicated that children experienced steady and significant improvements in EC across ages 4, 5, and 6. Independent of socioeconomic status, poorer neighborhood quality significantly predicted age 4 EC level and the growth in EC from ages 4 to 6. Hostile parenting emerged as a significant moderator of the relationship between poorer neighborhood quality and age 4 EC level.

Conclusions: This study underscores the importance of examining neighborhood context in relation to individual child outcomes.

Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10566-025-09868-2.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted family life, with disproportionate impacts on families who are racially and economically marginalized. Decades of developmental research emphasize how caregivers' or children's emotional responses to stressors shape children's post-exposure adaptation. Less work has examined the intersection of parents' and children's lived experiences of the pandemic, and their co-contribution to children's adaptation.

Objective: The study's goal was to examine both COVID-related and lifetime stressors and their associations with maternal perception of children's emotional regulation and distress in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Methods: In a sample of 72 mothers and their children (M = 7.94 years) who are American, low-income, and predominantly Black, we examined whether parent-reported maternal and child factors co-contributed to children's emotion regulation and COVID-related distress. Between November 2020-March 2021, mothers reported on their emotion regulation difficulties, their child's emotion regulation, their child's lifetime exposure to stressors, their child's exposure to COVID-specific stressors, and their own and their child's perception of COVID-related disruptions as distressing.

Results: Our results parse differential predictors: children's lifetime stressor exposure and maternal emotion regulation difficulties predicted children's emotion regulation; children's exposure to COVID-related stressors, maternal subjective COVID-related stress, and maternal emotion regulation difficulties predicted children's subjective COVID-related stress.

Conclusions: Although limited by reliance on parent report, findings highlight the importance of considering children's experiences of distress and emotion regulation during the COVID-19 pandemic in broader contexts, including the context of parent's own regulatory capacities and perceptions of stress, as well as children's lifetime experiences of stressors.

Background: Hispanic/Latinx people comprise 19% of the total United States population and are one of the fastest growing groups in the country. This growth has been particularly notable among youth from rural and small-town communities. Understanding mental health during adolescence in this population can have a significant impact on public health.

Objective: To compare depressive symptoms during adolescence among Latinx Children of Immigrants (COI), Latinx Children of Non-Immigrants (CONI), and non-Latinx White CONI from small towns in the United States.

Methods: We used longitudinal data from Grades 6 to 12 from 1,520 youth from 12 rural and small-town communities in seven states. The three study groups were defined by Latinx ethnicity, race, and immigrant generational status based on the child's and their parents' country of birth. Using a negative binomial form of the generalized linear mixed model, we evaluated differences in depressive symptoms among the groups and group-by-time interactions to assess whether differences varied across developmental age. Additional models were estimated stratified by sex.

Results: There were no statistically significant differences in depressive symptoms comparing adolescent Latinx CONI and non-Latinx White CONI to Latinx COI. However, Latinx CONI had significantly elevated depressive symptoms and a steeper decline in symptoms compared to White CONI. Among males, Latino CONI had higher symptom scores than Latino COI and White CONI; however, there were no notable differences among groups in female youth.

Conclusions: Findings from this study highlight the importance of immigrant generational status when assessing rural and small-town U.S. Latinx youth's mental health.

Background: Parent-focused treatments are a promising approach for addressing youth anxiety outside of traditional therapist-delivered modalities. Supportive Parenting for Anxious Childhood Emotions (SPACE) has preliminarily demonstrated efficacy for reducing family accommodation (FA), a key treatment outcome for youth anxiety.

Objective: Since the mechanisms of SPACE remain relatively understudied, we examined youth-reported distress tolerance (DT), anxiety sensitivity (AS), and negative automatic thoughts as candidate mechanisms of SPACE using data from a previously conducted clinical trial.

Methods: In a sample of N = 68 youth (M _age = 10.2; 52% male; 62% White), we examined: (a) associations among candidate mechanisms and FA at baseline, (b) pre- to post-intervention change in candidate mechanisms, and (c) the association between pre- to post-intervention changes in candidate mechanisms and FA at post-intervention.

Results: Youth-reported DT, AS, and negative automatic thoughts were correlated with one another, but were not associated with parent-reported FA at baseline. These findings were inconsistent with youth-reported FA, which evidenced significant relations with DT and AS at baseline. Scores of candidate mechanisms slightly improved from pre- to post-intervention, with AS evidencing the most prominent reduction, although effect sizes were small. Finally, only salutary pre- to post-intervention changes in DT and social-based negative automatic thoughts were associated with parent-reported FA at post-intervention, suggesting the potential relevance of these variables as relevant mechanisms in SPACE.

Conclusions: While our results do not permit definitive conclusions concerning the underlying youth-level mechanisms of SPACE, our findings may inform further refinement of parent-led interventions for anxious youth.

Background: Recognizing children's right to grow up in a family, advocates have long called for evidence-based interventions to prevent children from needlessly entering residential care. However, such programs have rarely been evaluated in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).

Objective: To assess the "Firmly Rooted" program's associations with improved relationship behaviors, relationship quality, emotional regulation, and economic stability in Sierra Leone.

Methods: This non-randomized, two-group pre-test/post-test study compared n = 50 pairs of caregivers and their children aged 9-13 who underwent a two-day workshop plus special home visits with n = 63 pairs receiving care-as-usual. Data were collected via survey interviews with participants at baseline and endline on measures of relationship behaviors, relationship quality, emotional regulation, and economic stability.

Results: Intervention-associated improvements included the following: caregivers talked to children more, according to child report; caregivers and children reported apologizing more; caregivers reported comforting children more; and children reported sharing their feelings more. However, intervention caregivers reported more "malicing" and smaller improvements on hostility/aggression than comparison caregivers, and intervention children reported worse performance accepting emotions. Other areas had no significant differences.

Conclusions: The program was associated with important improvements in caregiver-child relationship-enhancing behaviors, suggesting the promise of interventions to prevent family separation. Given other mixed and null effects, the program is being revised to strengthen other areas. Evidence on preventing children from entering residential care in LMICs is extremely lacking, despite the consensus on its importance; more investigation in this area is urgently needed.

Background: Home-visiting programs often aim to improve parenting skills, parent-child relationships, and children's developmental outcomes for at-risk families. Although research has identified what elements of these interventions are effective when provided by professionals, little is known about effective components of volunteer-based home-visiting programs.

Objective: This study focused on Home-Start, a preventive home-visiting program, delivering informal social support through volunteers to families with children up to 17 years old struggling with common parenting issues. The aim was to develop a detailed understanding of the core components of the Home-Start and thereby develop a better understanding of the unique elements of volunteer-based home-visiting programs.

Methods: We interviewed 10 parents and 11 volunteers and used thematic analysis.

Results: We found evidence for the relevance of the four principles identified by Home-Start the Netherlands. These are: Needs-oriented care, Focusing on empowerment, Equality and trust, and the Gift of time. We also describe a fifth theme, namely Professional support for the volunteer. The findings suggest overlap with effective components for professional-based support, but also highlight unique elements of volunteer-based home-visiting programs, which are rooted in the shared parenting experiences of volunteers and parents.

Conclusions: This paper provides new insights into the unique value of volunteer-based support for families.

Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10566-025-09855-7.

Background: Given the impact of growing up in vulnerable families on opportunities in life and the large numbers of families with severe parenting and child functioning problems who repeatedly receive some form of youth care, it is important to investigate the long-term outcomes of the provided care.

Objective: This study aimed to investigate whether outcomes endure over a longer period of time, by exploring the effects of family-focused youth care on child, parental and family functioning at the end of care and at follow-up moments.

Method: A systematic search was conducted in three databases (Psycinfo, Web of Science and ERIC), using search terms matching youth care and long-term effects. Effects between start and end of care, between end and follow up moments and between start and follow up moments on child, parent and family functioning were systematically mapped out.

Results: Twenty-six articles were included describing effects of family-focused youth care at post treatment and at least one follow-up moment. The results demonstrated positive outcomes in short and longer term as improvement was found in child, parent and family functioning at the end of care and follow-up moments.

Conclusions: Despite the positive outcomes, determining long-term effects of youth care turned out to be difficult, as most studies organize follow-up moments within one year of the end of care. Moreover, there may also be an intertwined effect of the provided and possible follow-up care. More longitudinal research with follow-up moments over multiple years is required to investigate the durability of outcomes.

Background

Among the different modalities of family support, home visiting programs have proved to be one of the most effective secondary prevention models for families involved in child welfare services. Despite the promising outcomes and the extensive available literature, further research is needed to investigate target population characteristics and implementation factors that may explain the heterogeneity in the outcomes of these programs for families receiving child welfare services.

Objective

This longitudinal study explored the role of dosage and family characteristics related to the effectiveness of the Family Intervention Program (FIP), which is a home-based Spanish child welfare service for supporting families at psychosocial risk.

Method

To this end, a quasi-experimental design was followed, including a time-series evaluation of the 289 families receiving the FIP. In order to examine the impact of the FIP, the evolution of child well-being (CWB) was evaluated with Child Well-Being Scales every 6 months.

Results

The results showed that the highest average CWB score was observed after 39 months of intervention, observing no improvements in CWB from that point. Similarly, the results showed that the FIP was more effective for single parent families at higher socioeconomic levels.

Conclusions

This article provides new knowledge for the understanding of home visiting programs success, concluding that the programs are not equally effective for all family profiles, and that it is necessary to adjust each program to the specific characteristics of the target population.

Background

Global research has found that prevalence rates of child sexual abuse suggest that this is a significant ongoing public health concern. A recent Australian study, for example, revealed that more than three girls and almost one in five boys reported experiencing sexual abuse before the age of 18. Self-reported rates of abuse, however, far exceed official figures, suggesting that large numbers of children who experience sexual abuse do not come to the attention of relevant authorities. Whether and how those children have tried to tell their stories remains unclear.

Objective

The goal of the review was to explore scholarly literature to determine what was known about what enables or constrains children to disclose their experience of sexual abuse.

Method

A systematic scoping review was undertaken to better understand the current state of knowledge in the scholarly literature on child sexual abuse disclosure. Thirty-two scholarly publications were included for analysis following a rigorous process of sourcing articles from five databases and systematically screening them based on transparent inclusion and exclusion criteria. Ecological systems and trauma-informed theoretical paradigms underpinned an inductive thematic analysis of the included manuscripts.

Results

Three multi-dimensional themes were identified from the thirty-two publications. These themes were: factors enabling disclosure are multifaceted; barriers to disclosure include a complex interplay of individual, familial, contextual and cultural issues; and Indigenous victims and survivors, male survivors, and survivors with a minoritised cultural background may face additional barriers to disclosing their experiences of abuse.

Conclusions

The literature suggests that a greater understanding of the barriers to disclosures exists. Further research that supports a deeper understanding of the complex interplay of enablers and the barriers to disclosure across diverse populations is needed. In particular, future research should privilege the voices of victims and survivors of child sexual abuse, mobilising their lived experiences to co-create improved practice and policy.

Background

Mental health is a priority for high schools, but extant programs often focus on symptom reduction rather than promoting adolescents’ developmental assets.

Objective

The goal of this study is to examine whether Art in Mind (AIM), a strengths-based after-school organized art activity tailored to fit the needs of adolescents with internalizing problems, can promote young people’s psychosocial adjustment and support their positive development.

Methods

Using a quasi-experimental pre-program, post-program, and 5-month follow-up design, 50 students (mean age = 15.60; 68% female) from four Canadian high schools were assigned to AIM (n = 23) or to a waitlist condition (n = 27).

Results

Results from 2 × 2 mixed ANCOVAs revealed significant time by condition interactions reflecting greater improvement in the AIM group with regards to depressive mood at post-program, and to general self-efficacy, social functioning, and positive self-esteem at follow-up. Planned comparisons revealed several significant improvements between pre- and post-program or post-program and follow-up in the AIM group (effect sizes ranging between d = 0.27 and 0.61), while none were observed in the waitlist group.

Conclusions

This study supports the potential of after-school organized activities as a strategy to effectively foster positive youth development in adolescents with internalizing symptoms. Further studies are needed to understand the essential implementation parameters and mechanisms of action in these programs.