The Effect of Perceived Support for Black Mothers with Exposure to Community Violence

Background and Purpose: Investigators have been interested in the role parents play in supporting youth exposed to community violence (ECV). One particular area of interest is how parenting supports can moderate the influence of ECV on youth functioning. The influence of parents’ own ECV on their parenting has been less well understood. Black mothers who reside in disinvested neighborhoods are more likely to witness or be victims of community violence. Such ECV can create parental stress and lead to emotional maladjustment, which can impede parents’ ability to lessen the negative impact of their children’s ECV (Pei et al., 2019) and may affect child maltreatment, abuse, or aggressive parenting practices (Cross et al., 2018). The current study examined Black mothers’ perceived support from family and friends as a buffer to the impact of past and recent ECV on parenting stress or emotional adjustment to parenting.

Methods: The current study included only Black and predominantly non-Hispanic/Latina, mothers (n=699) who provided baseline data in a longitudinal study of brief parenting interventions to reduce risk of child physical maltreatment in a selected population. Predictor variables included maternal ECV in childhood, measured with five items from the Philadelphia ACE Survey, and current ECV, measured with a seven-item Community Violence Inventory. The moderator variable was the 12-item Perceived Social Support scale. Outcomes examined were parenting stress, measured with five items from the Parenting Stress Index, and emotional adjustment to parenting, measured using a five-item subscale of the Parental and Family Adjustment Scale.

Results: On average, mothers reported moderate childhood and low current ECV, moderate parenting stress, high levels of emotional adjustment to parenting, and high levels of perceived support from family and friends. There were significant main effects of ECV predictors on both parenting stress and emotional adjustment to parenting. Mothers’ childhood and current ECV predicted greater parenting stress (β=.22, p<.001 and β=.10, p<.01, respectively) and poorer emotional adjustment to parenting (β=-.22, p<.001 and β=-.17, p<.001, respectively), the primary study outcomes. Perceived support, the potential moderator of interest, was negatively correlated with mothers’ childhood and current ECV (r=-.19, p<.01 and r=-.34, p<.01, respectively). Perceived support also predicted lower parenting stress (β=-.15, p<.001) and better emotional adjustment to parenting (β=.20, p<.001). Regarding the two main research questions, perceived support did moderate the relationship between mothers’ current ECV and their emotional adjustment to parenting (β=.10, p<.01); however, it did not moderate the other examined relationships.

Conclusions and Implications: This study found that social support from families and friends, even at low levels, can significantly lessen the negative influence of mothers’ recent ECV on their emotional adjustment to parenting. Study findings suggest that social work practice should engage in treatment processes with mothers with stress or trauma stemming from ECV that use parenting supports that incorporate relationships with significant family members and friends and increase resources and capacity for those supports to be optimally instrumental and impactful.