Saturday, 15 January 2005 - 10:00 AM

This presentation is part of: Services for High-Risk Families

Evaluating Targeted Parent Assistance : The Parent-to-Parent Helping Program in Kansas

Purpose: The study analyses the contribution and effectiveness of a Targeted Parent Assistance (TPA) program as a parent-to-parent helping program for Kansas children with mental health problems and their families. Although effective family driven advocacy ensures that services remain highly visible, and a part of state and local priorities, few studies have been conducted and little is known about the impact on families of the parent-to-parent programs.

Method: This paper reports the evaluative results of a 10 year old TPA program by analyzing the client tracking database designed using FileMaker Pro. Data from 1656 cases, served over three years (2000-2003), were coded and quantitatively analyzed. The tracking service logs for one year (2002) were intensively analyzed. The content analysis was used to identify the problems and needs of clients and interventions offered from the service logs of the database. Survival analysis and Cox regression were conducted to compare the trends in active/inactive status of the client over time for some variables-client status, service area and ethnicity.

Results: This evaluative research found that the TPA program contributed effectively to the families and children with mental health problems in Kansas by supporting them with strategic interventions and promoting their self-advocacy. For example, 30.5% of families had school related needs and problems. Interventions offered included referral information, advocacy, and direct actions with the schools such as assistance in obtaining IEP's. Parent involvement along a ten-step growth process, their active/inactive status, and characteristics of level movement were identified. Parents who achieve higher levels are less likely to become inactive than those at lower levels over time. Approximately 1/3 of low level clients maintained contact with TPA for 2 years compared to 2/3 of high level clients.

Implications: This research demonstrates the relationship between what the TPA program did and the changes it fostered in the lives of the families they served providing evidence-based results. This study emphasizes the importance of combining the expertise of parents and concerned professionals to provide a support for families with mental health problems. The study also contributes information that can minimize the use of high cost-low impact interventions and maximize low cost-high impact interventions.

See more of Services for High-Risk Families
See more of Oral and Poster

See more of Celebrating a Decade of SSWR (January 13 - 16, 2005)