Assessment and Intervention. Dora Pereira, PhD and Isabel Silva, PhD Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal

1. SHARING LEARNING AND BEST PRACTICES
BETWEEN PROFESSIONALS WORKING WITH
YOUNG CHILDREN IN RESIDENTIAL CARE:
ASSESSMENT AND INTERVENTION
Dora Pereira, PhD & Isabel Silva, PhD
Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences
University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal
BASPCAN Congress, Edinburgh, Scotland
April 13, 2015

2. Isabel’s
home
Dora’s
home
Our
University
University of Coimbra

3. Portuguese context
• Temporary Residential Care – Provides care during the period
needed for the case assessment and the definition of a life plan for
the child or young person. This transitory care period is of more or
less 6 months, providing the environment and the basic conditions to
overcome the danger situation.
• Children enter a Temporary Residential Care Centre when they are in
a danger situation (when their development will get seriously
compromised if they continue where they are – need for urgent
protection), following an order given by Local Commissions for
Protection of Children and Young Persons (when parents gave
consent) or by the court.
• Workers on those centres doesn’t have specific care training, and on
the majority of situations they have a low scholar graduation. Mostly
females, they do their work based on their own parental models.

4. Overview
• Introduction
• Parenting assessment in residential context
• Main references
• Exercise
• Practical cues for intervention
• Carer’s skills development in residential context
• The Incredible Years Programme
• Exercise

5. Parenting Assessment: main theoretical references
Process model of the determinants of parenting
(Belsky, 1984; Belsky & Vondra, 1989)
Attachment theory
(Ainsworth,1989; Bowlby, 1969; Main, 1995)
Ecological Model(Bronfenbrenner, 1999)
Systemic Epistemology

6. Assessment on residential care
Risk assessment
(protection)
#
Parenting capacities assessment
(change)
Pereira & Alarcão, 2013

7. Parenting Behavior Functional Model
(Pereira, 2014)
S
y
n
c
h
r
o
n
i
c
A
x
i
s
D i a c h r o n i c A x i s
Parenting skills
Mediating processes
Parental Capacity
Relational
modifiers
Individual
Psychological
Structure
Contextual
modifiers

8. How to effectively assess parenting capacities and skills in a
context where parents-child interaction becomes much more
limited?
Do… Don’t …
… Promote parent’s participation on
child daily life
… Promote “visits”
… Observe interactions … Just interview
… Work with professionals from other
services
… Keep your door closed…
… Take time do assess … Jump to definitive conclusions from
one single event
… Integrate past, present and future … Keep focused on the past or on the
most recent event

9. CONTEXT
1
FAMILY AND SOCIAL
CONTEXT
CHILD
2
CHILD’S HEALTH AND
DEVELOPMENT
PARENTS-CHILD
RELATION
3
ATTACHMENT
4
PARENTING SKILLS
PARENTS
5
IMPULSE CONTROL
6
RESPONSIBILITY
RECOGNITION
7
PERONAL FACTORS THAT
AFFECT PARENTING
CAPACITIES
8
SOCIAL SUPPORT
NETWORK
9
SERVICES
INTERVENTIONS HISTORY
PARENTING
CAPACITIES
EVALUATION
GUIDE
(0-5)

10. Multi
Methods (direct
observation,
home visits,
interviews,
contact with
other
professionals)
Sources (parents,
child, other
family members,
professionals)
Contexts (in and
out residential
care; ex: medical
appointments)
FAMILY AND SOCIAL
CONTEXT
What are the major strenghts and weaknesses on the
different daily life areas, such as household, neighboord,
finances, employment,couple relation, imigration ?
CHILD’S HEALTH AND
DEVELOPMENT
How good is child’s health and development ?
ATTACHMENT How secure is child-mother attachment?
PARENTING SKILLS How good are the parental skills?
IMPULSE CONTROL How good are the impulse control capacity?
RESPONSIBILITY
RECOGNITION
Does the parent recognizes his/her responsibility on the
present situation?
PERSONAL FACTORS
THAT AFFECT
PARENTING CAPACITIES
How does the parent’s personal factors (such as mental
health problems, intellectual disability, substance abuse or
domestic violence) affect the parental capacities?
SOCIAL SUPPORT
NETWORK
How does the parent’ relates with his/her social network?
SERVICES
INTERVENTIONS
HISTORY
How is/was the parent’s relation with clinical services ?
Pereira & Alarcão, 2013

11. Parenting Capacity Profile
Main Resource
Secondary Resource
Main Difficulty
Secondary DifficultyChange
Prognosis A: Encouraging
change potential
B: High risk of
becoming a chronic
situation
Pereira & Alarcão, 2013

12. • Apply the 4th dimension – Parenting Skills – to a case of
your own professional practice
• Notice what you know and what you don’t
• Do you have enough information to classify this
dimension?
Exercise

13. • Change is a process
• If you don’t recognize that change should occur, you
would hardly be involved on such process
• To develop skills, people must have capacity to do it
• So, let’s look for some cues about intervention process
with parents
And now…what?

14. Parenting Capacity
Parenting skills
Parenting Capacity
+
+
+
+
-
-
-
-
Mediating
Processes
Mediating
Processes
Mediating
Processes
Mediating
Processes
Parenting skills
Minim. Adequate
Parenting
Social support;
Psychoterapeutic
Intervention
Parental education
New carers
- -
+
+
Psychoterapeutic
Intervention
Psychoterapeutic
Interv. and Parental
education

15. • Goals: Focuses on strengthening parenting
skills to manage problems behaviour among
children and to increase children social
competence
• One of the most effective and evidenced-
based psychosocial intervention programmes,
for both the treatment and prevention of
conduct disorder in children (3-8 years old)
(Webster-Stratton, 2011; Webster-Stratton & Reid, 2006;
Webster-Stratton, Reid, & Hammond, 2004)
• Successfully transported to the Portuguese
context (Azevedo et al., 2013; Cabral et al., 2009/2010;
Webster-Stratton, Gaspar, & Seabra-Santos, 2012)
A little about the Incredible Years Basic
Parent Training Programme….
Professor Carolyn Webster-Stratton,
IYP developer

16. Group Sessions:
• 13 weeks (2-hour sessions) of training with the IY (Webster-Stratton,
2000)
• Led by two trained professionals in IY
• Run in the residential centre, on the day and time best suited for the
group
• Make-up sessions
Method & Process:
• Focus on cognitive, behaviour & affect, collaborative approach and
skill development through: Group discussion, Video Modeling,
Role plays & practice/rehearsal, Weekly assignments;
Reading materials; Weekly evaluations
Training Targets:
• Play; Involvement; Descriptive Comments
• Praise; Rewards
• Effective Limit Setting; Clear Commands; Household Rules
• Handling misbehaviour; Ignoring; Time-Out; Consequences;
Problem Solving
Bottom - use liberally;
Top - use selectively
INTERVENTION

17. Studies show that this is an effective program that:
 Increases positive parenting style & Parent/Child Interaction; Praise and
effective discipline
 Reduces parental use of harsh, inconsistent and unnecessary discipline
Decreases child conduct problems (negative behaviours and
noncompliance)
 Increases child social competence
 Research also reports positive outcomes with teachers, nursery staff and foster
carers (Bywater et al., 2011; Bywater, Hutchings, Gridley, & Jones, 2011; Hutchings & Bywater, 2013;
Linares, Montalto, Li, & Oza, 2006; McDaniel, Braiden, Onyekwelu, Murphy, & Regan, 2011; Nilsen, 2007).
Incredible Years Outcomes
Staff Toolkit
In residential context: challenging child
behaviour and carers lack of skills in dealing with
them, lead us to delivered the IYP to residential
child care workers to improve care staff skills and
the relationship with their looked after children.

18. Exercise
• Situation: John (9 years old) would often escape chores
and argues with the care workers and the other residents.
One morning the care worker walks in the room at chore
time and John is making the bed. Imagine you are the
care worker, what would you say to John in this situation?
• Which behaviour do you want to see increase or reduce…
• What strategies would you use?
- Retrieve some IY principles
- Watch a brief Incredible Years video

21. To sum it up…
• The touchstone for good residential/group care is the
congruence/consistency within and across all levels of
agency functioning (Anglin, 2012)
• A practitioner needs to support a child's relationship with
his parents, and it is essential to prepare educators and
caregivers to meet the demanding and complex
challenges the youth exhibited in the group homes (Anglin,
2014)

22. THANK YOU FOR PARTICIPATING!
COMMENTS & QUESTIONS
For more information, feel free to email:
Dora Pereira | disabelp@netvisao.pt
Isabel Silva | isabel.s.silva@sapo.pt