59P
Understanding Behavioral Determinants of Repeat Service Use in a Family Support Program
Family Success Centers (FSCs) are neighborhood-based resource and support centers that are intended to reduce risk factors for child abuse and neglect and improve protective factors in families and communities. They are voluntary, flexible, strength-promoting services intended to address emergent needs, as well as engage families in a range of non-clinical services that may improve their longer-term functioning. However, many families that enter the door of a center for the first time do not return.
There are a number of models that seek to predict repeat social service use, based on health behavior and general behavior theories. However, all of the models to date have been developed and utilized to understand populations that have received either voluntary home visitation services or non-voluntary child protection services. The purpose of this study was to examine the application of the dominant constructs from the leading theories and models in understanding repeat service use in a voluntary, strength-promoting service predicated on a high degree of parental initiative, autonomy and self-determination.
Methods
This was a prospective, non-experimental, longitudinal study. The sampling had two stages; five FSCs were recruited, from which 115 parents were recruited. In-person interviews were conducted with new participants of the Centers that were parents or caregivers of children age 18 or younger, shortly after their initial entry into a Family Success Center, to measure type of need (concrete needs only vs. personal development/multiple-type), self-efficacy, expectations of benefit, intrinsic motivation, injunctive and descriptive social norms, perceptions of family support practices, past service use, and intentions to use services. Intentions were predicted to act as a mediator. The dependent variable was a dichotomous measure of repeat service use following the first visit, which was taken from administrative data.
Results
Results of logistic regression indicated that families were more likely to repeat service use if they were non-Hispanic White, single, had some college, had requested personal development activities (as opposed to concrete assistance only), had higher integrated motivation, and had lower descriptive social norms. Intentions did not mediate these relationships, but acted as a suppressor, resulting in increased effect sizes once added to the model. This indicates inconsistent mediation. In addition, older age, unemployment, integrated motivation, and family support practices were related to higher intentions in a multivariate regression. Center variation was also examined using ANOVAs and was significant for most variables.
Conclusion and Implications
Two of the variables in this study, intrinsic motivation and descriptive social norms, are not often included in studies of this type and they lent a unique perspective to our understanding of parental motivations. Further, analysis of variable reliability and factor analysis indicated a limitation of problem-oriented language in commonly used scales, which were not considered relevant by parents that were engaging in promotional activities. However, this study is limited by the modest sample size and inability to model the center variations in a multivariate model. This study has implications for how we approach theory, research and practice with families in strength-promoting, voluntary service arenas.