SafeCare Parent Child Interaction
SafeCare Parent Child Interaction (PCI) is a manualized component of SafeCare, an in-home parent support programme that provides direct parenting skills to parents and caregivers of children ages 0 to 5 years. SafeCare PCI can benefit a wide range of families: those involved with Children’s Social Services due to child neglect or abuse as well as other at-risk families. The curriculum aims to prevent families from entering or re-entering the children’s social care system.
SafeCare Parent Child Interaction (PCI) addresses risk factors associated with neglect and physical abuse by targeting positive parenting behaviours. Providers work with caregivers to strengthen their skills in structuring daily activities for their children, providing engaging and stimulating activities, increasing positive interactions, and preventing challenging child behaviour.
The programme consists of six one hour weekly sessions delivered to families in their home over two months. Participants learn about parenting strategies through learning and practising new skills with positive and corrective feedback from practitioners.
EIF Programme Assessment
Child outcomes
This programme can affect outcomes for children in Active and healthy, physical and mental wellbeing.
According to the best available evidence for this programme's impact, it can achieve the following positive outcomes for children:
Supporting children's mental health and wellbeing
Improved positive engagement with parents
based on study 1a
Preventing crime, violence and antisocial behaviour
Improved mature adaptive behaviour
based on study 1a
Improved cooperative behaviour
based on study 1b
Reduced externalising behaviour
based on study 1b
This programme also has evidence of supporting positive outcomes for couples, parents or families that may be relevant to a commissioning decision. Please see About the evidence for more detail.
Who is it for?
The best available evidence for this programme relates to the following age-groups:
Preschool
How is it delivered?
The best available evidence for this programme relates to implementation through these delivery models:
- Home visiting
Where is it delivered?
The best available evidence for this programme relates to its implementation in these settings:
How is it targeted?
The best available evidence for this programme relates to its implementation as:
- Targeted selective
Where has it been implemented?
- Australia
- New Zealand
- United Kingdom
- Canada
- Spain
- Israel
- Japan
- Taiwan
- Kenya
- United States
Ireland provision
Ireland evaluation
About the programme
What happens during the delivery?
How is it delivered?
- SafeCare Parent-Child Interaction is delivered in six sessions of one hour duration each by one practitioner to one family.
What happens during the intervention?
- Participants learn about child-parent relationship and parenting strategies through learning and practising new skills with positive and corrective feedback from practitioners.
What are the implementation requirements?
Who can deliver it?
- The practitioner who delivers this programme is a SafeCare provider with QCF-3 level qualifications.
What are the training requirements?
- SafeCare PCI Providers participate in a two-day workshop (14 hours total), followed by in-field support to become certified as SafeCare PCI Providers.
How are the practitioners supervised?
- It is recommended that practitioners are supervised by one case management supervisor (qualified to QCF-4/5 level). The supervisor should complete a two hour Orientation session and a one hour Supervisor SafeCare Seminar.
What are the systems for maintaining fidelity?
Programme fidelity is maintained through the following processes:
- Training manual
- Other printed material
- Fidelity monitoring
- Audio review
Is there a licensing requirement?
There is a licence required to run this programme.
How does it work? (Theory of Change)
How does it work?
- Child neglect and abuse have long term negative impacts on children’s physical and mental health.
- SafeCare Parent Child Interaction aims to change parenting behaviours most proximal to child neglect and abuse through skill modelling, practice and feedback.
- The module can result in better parent-child relationships, secure attachment, and improved child behaviour.
- Long-term, this could reduce neglect, abuse and referrals to child protection services.
Intended outcomes
- Safe and protected from harm
Contact details
JoAnne Bielecki, PhD
National SafeCare Training and Research Center
safecare@gsu.edu
About the evidence
SafeCare Parent Child Interaction’s most rigorous evidence comes from one RCT which was conducted in the US. This programme is underpinned by two studies on one RCT with a Level 2+, hence the programme receives a Level 2+ rating overall.
Study 1a
| Citation: | Carta et al., 2013 |
| Design: | RCT |
| Country: | United States |
| Sample: | 371 families, with children aged 3.5 to 4.5 years |
| Timing: | Pre-test; 6 month follow-up |
| Child outcomes: | |
| Other outcomes: |
|
| Study rating: | 2+ |
Carta, J. J., Lefever, J. B., Bigelow, K., Borkowski, J.,
& Warren, S. F. (2013). Randomized trial of a cellular phone-enhanced home
visitation parenting intervention. Pediatrics, 132(Supplement_2), S167-S173.
Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4258827/
Study design and sample
The first study is an RCT. This study involved random assignment of children to a treatment group (PCI), phone enhanced treatment group (PCI-C), and a control group.
This study was conducted in the US, with parents of children aged between 3.5 and 4.5 years, where families present at least one risk factor for child maltreatment (e.g. parent’s age <18 years at first child’s birth, having less than a high school diploma/ equivalent, receiving financial assistance). The majority of the sample had low income (e.g. receiving financial assistance). Mothers self-identified as belonging to the following groups: Hispanic (46%); African American (33%); White, non-Hispanic (17%); and mixed race or Asian American (4%). The racial and ethnic diversity of the sample matched the diversity of the populations served by the organizations from which the sample was recruited.
Measures
Child adaptive behaviour, and externalising and internalising problem behaviours were measured using the Behaviour Assessment Scale for Children-2-Parent Report Scale (BASC-2-PRS) (parent report). Children’s positive engagement and responsiveness during parent-child interactions were measured using The Child Behaviour Rating Scale (CBRS) (expert observation of behaviour).
Findings
This study identified statistically significant positive impact on a number of child outcomes.
At 6 months follow-up, this includes child adaptive behaviour for the PCI-C group (phone-enhanced treatment), and child positive engagement during parent-child interactions for both PCI-C and PCI groups.
Study 1b
| Citation: | Lefever et al., 2017 |
| Design: | RCT |
| Country: | United States |
| Sample: | 371 families, with children aged 3.5 to 4.5 years |
| Timing: | 12 month follow-up |
| Child outcomes: | |
| Other outcomes: |
|
| Study rating: | 2+ |
Lefever, J. E. B., Bigelow, K. M., Carta, J. J., Borkowski, J. G., Grandfield, E., McCune, L., Irvin, D. W., & Warren, S. F. (2017). Long-Term Impact of a Cell Phone–Enhanced Parenting Intervention. Child Maltreatment, 22(4), 305–314. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077559517723125
This study identified additional findings to the outcomes described above in study 1a. Statistically significant positive impacts were found for cooperative behaviour and externalising behaviour for the PCI-C group at 12 month follow up.
Other impact evaluations were identified but excluded as they evaluated a different version of the programme.