A Culturally Adapted Parenting Intervention for Latinx Immigrants: An Overt Focus on Immigration Stress and Biculturalism

Background and Purpose: A key strategy to battle inequities consists of culturally adapting evidence-based interventions by addressing oppressive experiences lived by diverse populations. Otherwise, there is a risk of perpetuating historical oppression if evidence-based interventions are not responsive to the realities of diverse populations exposed to continuous adversity. For example, low-income Latinx immigrants are very likely to be impacted by immigration-related stress (e.g., poverty, work exploitation) and trauma (e.g., racial discrimination). In this presentation, we will describe the findings from an investigation aimed at empirically testing the initial efficacy of a culturally adapted parenting intervention for low-income Latinx immigrant families with adolescents. The intervention was adapted by overtly addressing the impact of immigration-related stress and trauma on immigrant parents’ parenting practices.

Methods: The adapted intervention is known as CAPAS-Youth and consists of all the core parenting of the original evidence-based intervention known as GenerationPMTO, which was originally developed with a majority of Euro-American parents. CAPAS-Youth also has sessions fully focused on addressing the impact of immigration-related challenges on parenting practices, strategies to address immigration stress and trauma, and parenting skills to promote family biculturalism. To evaluate the impact of the intervention, 71 Mexican-origin immigrant parents were randomly allocated to one of two conditions: (a) CAPAS-Youth, or (b) wait-list control (WLC). Due to the exploratory nature of the study, which was implemented during the challenging anti-immigration climate promoted by the Trump administration, measurements only consisted of baseline (T1) and intervention completion (T2). Follow-up assessments were not implemented due to the families’ high likelihood of relocation and in some cases, forced deportation. Mixed factorial ANCOVAs were utilized to evaluate intervention effects, with effect sizes (η²) computed for each intervention effect. Analyses included the false discovery rate to increase the rigor of analyses.

Results: Of recruited participants, 86.1% completed T2 assessments. Significant positive effects were detected for all parenting outcomes, except for limit-setting for which no significant differences were detected at T2. The effect sizes for all parenting outcomes were large (ranging from η² = .21 to η² = .32). At T2 measurements, significant intervention effects were also detected for youth problematic behaviors. Effect sizes were large for CAPAS-Youth, as indicated by reductions in youth internalizing (η² = .25) and externalizing behaviors (η² = .24). All participant families were offered case management services to cope with immigration-related stressors, resulting in significant reductions on immigration-related stress for CAPAS-Youth t (27) = 2.29, p = .03 and WLC t (29) = 2.39, p = .02.

Conclusion and Implications: Current findings highlight the relevance of overtly addressing contextual oppression as a way to ground evidence-based interventions according to key contextual and cultural considerations of relevance to underserved Latinx immigrant populations. Although exploratory, current findings constitute promising evidence of the relevance of disseminating culturally adapted interventions as a way to address mental health inequities experienced by underserved Latinxs. To be effective, such adapted interventions must directly address oppressive experiences that continue to impact the life experiences of diverse populations, such as Latinx immigrants’ day-to-day parenting practices.