Evaluation of the Parental Support Intervention For Our Children's Sake in Prisons in Sweden

Children of Incarcerated Parents - Evaluation of Parental Support Programme in Prison to Promote Positive Parenting and Prevent Children's Ill-health and Delinquency Later in Life

Evaluation of the effects of the parental support intervention "For our children's sake" on positive parenting outcomes when conducted with incarcerated parents in prisons in Sweden.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Parent-Child Relations; Parenting
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: For Our Children's Sake; Other: Active control

Detailed Description

Children of incarcerated parents comprise a greatly disadvantaged group in society with elevated risk of ill-health, behavioural problems, and own delinquency and unemployment later in life. Positive parenting comprise an important factor for children's positive and healthy development. Incarcerated parents may have difficulties to engage in positive parenting due to disadvantaged situations affecting parenting negatively such as drug addiction, poverty, or lack of experience of positive parenting in their own childhood. Previous research has suggested that interventions to prevent the intergenerational effect of criminality should be targeting family factors where positive parenting has been emphasised. Internationally developed parenting interventions for incarcerated parents suggest an impact on parenting outcomes such as positive parent-child interaction, parenting knowledge, empathy, parent stress, increased child contact and active parenting, However, the majority of the programmes evaluated to date have been conducted in the US, with a prison and probation context with limited generalisability to the Swedish system. In Sweden, the parenting programme for incarcerated parents, "For our children's' sake" (FOCS) was developed in 2012-2014 with the aim to support positive parenting for the child's healthy development and is currently delivered in Swedish prisons. The aim of this project is to evaluate the effects of the FOCS parenting programme on parenting outcomes through a controlled trial with a parallel implementation process evaluation.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 91
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• Sweden
  • Stockholm, Sweden
    • Karolinska Institutet

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: ADULT; OLDER_ADULT; CHILD
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Serving a sentence at any of the included prisons
• Having at least one child in the ages between 0-18 years. Parents of children aged 0-2 and 13-18 years will not be included in the primary outcome measure, as the measure is not developed for these age groups. These parents will be included in the mediator measurements.
• Are in contact with their child/children in any form. If not, these parents are included in the mediator measurements, as the primary outcome: relationship quality, is not applicable.
• Having the legal right to contact the child
• Not committed either a crime against the child or any violent crime against the other parent

Exclusion Criteria:

• Not fulfilling inclusion criteria

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: PREVENTION
• Allocation: NON_RANDOMIZED
• Interventional Model: PARALLEL
• Masking: NONE

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
EXPERIMENTAL: Intervention; Participating in the For our children's sake intervention, 10 group sessions, 2 hours each	Behavioral: For Our Children's Sake; Parental support with the aim to support positive parenting and promote healthy child development. Conducted in group-format with weekly 2.hour sessions conducted by trained group leaders according to a programme manual.
ACTIVE_COMPARATOR: Control; Participating in everyday activities that may include parenting activities in the control prisons	Other: Active control; Participating in everyday activities that may include parenting activities in the control prisons

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
7-items sub-scale Closeness in the Child Parent Relationship Scale	Parent-reported quality in relationship between parent and child on a 5-point scale ('complete agree' to 'completely disagree')	Positive change in mean score of all 7 items between baseline (pre-intervention) and end of intervention, after 10 weeks. Measurements will also be conducted at mid-intervention to investigate mediated effects, and a 3-month post intervention follow-up.

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Contact frequency and type between parent and child	Parent-reported frequency (weekly, monthly, less, no contact) and type (letter, telephone, visit/permission, other	Change in mean score of items between baseline (pre-intervention) and end of intervention, after 10 weeks. Measurements will also be conducted at a 3-month post intervention follow-up.
Eight items chosen from the sub-scale antisocial intent in the Measures of Criminal Attitudes and Associates scale	Parental attitude to criminality self-reported on a 5-point scale ('complete agree' to 'completely disagree')	Change in mean score of items between baseline (pre-intervention) and end of intervention, after 10 weeks. Measurements will also be conducted at a 3-month post intervention follow-up.
Parent interest in other treatment programmes in prison	One item self-reported on an 11-point scale (0 no interest, 10 very high interest)	Change in item score between baseline (pre-intervention) and end of intervention, after 10 weeks. Measurements will also be conducted at a 3-month post intervention follow-up.

Other Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
14 item parenting attitude from the The Adult-Adolescent Parenting Inventory (AAPI-2)	Intermediate outcome/mediator self-reported on a 5-point scale ('complete agree' to 'completely disagree')	Change in mean score of items between baseline (pre-intervention) and end of intervention, after 10 weeks. Measurements will also be conducted at mid-intervention to investigate mediated effects, and a 3-month post intervention follow-up.
6 items parental self-efficacy scale	Intermediate outcome/mediator self-reported on a 5-point scale ('complete agree' to 'completely disagree')	Change in mean score of items between baseline (pre-intervention) and end of intervention, after 10 weeks. Measurements will also be conducted at mid-intervention to investigate mediated effects, and a 3-month post intervention follow-up.

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Karolinska Institutet
• Collaborators: The Solstickan Foundation, The Sven Jerring Foundation
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Åsa Norman, PhD, Karolinska Institutet

Publications and helpful links

General Publications

• Norman A, Enebrink P. Evaluation of the For Our Children's Sake intervention, parental support in prison to influence positive parenting: study protocol for a controlled trial. BMJ Open. 2020 Jun 7;10(6):e034834. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2019-034834.

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (ACTUAL): September 21, 2019
• Primary Completion (ACTUAL): June 30, 2020
• Study Completion (ACTUAL): June 30, 2020

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: September 20, 2019
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: September 23, 2019
• First Posted (ACTUAL): September 24, 2019

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (ACTUAL): September 23, 2020
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: September 22, 2020
• Last Verified: September 1, 2020

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: Child; Prison; Criminality
• Other Study ID Numbers: 2019-04227

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: YES
• IPD Plan Description: Data cannot be shared publicly because of ethical reasons, where public availability would compromise participant privacy. Data are available from the Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institute (contact via registrator@cns.ki.se) for researchers who meet the criteria for access to confidential data.
• IPD Sharing Time Frame: After article publication
• IPD Sharing Access Criteria: Data cannot be shared publicly because of ethical reasons, where public availability would compromise participant privacy. Data are available from the Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institute (contact via registrator@cns.ki.se) for researchers who meet the criteria for access to confidential data.
• IPD Sharing Supporting Information Type: STUDY_PROTOCOL

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No