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"They Won't Come": Increasing Parent Involvement in Parent Management Training Programs for At-Risk Youths in Schools Philip M. Ouellette and David Wilkerson The absence of parents from schools is seen as an important factor related to the significant number of adolescents at risk of school failure. Effective par- enting is known to be a key protective factor for adolescents at risk for school failure and other maladaptive developmental outcomes. While evidence-based parent management training models exist, their use has been limited by prob- lems regarding recruitment and retention when services are offered through traditional means. We review the literature on parent involvement in schools, the effectiveness of parent education programs, and mutual aid activities. Logistical barriers to parentparticipation in parent management training pro- grams and other school-related activities are examined, and a strategy using twenty-first-century technology will be described as a means to increase par- ent involvement in schools. Keywords: at-risk youths; mutual aid; parent involvement; parent manage- ment training; school failure; technology-supported strategy "They won't come" is a summary statement that we often hear from teachers, school administrators, and school social workers regarding their efforts to increase parent and family involvement in parent man- agement training programs and school-related activities. The absence of Philip M. Ouellette, PhD. is associate professor at Indiana University School of Social Work. David Wilkerson, MSW, LCSW is a doctoral student at Indiana University School of Social Work. Address correspondence to Philip M. Ouellette, Indiana University School of Social Work, 902 West New York Street, Indianapolis, IN 46202; tel.: 317- 278-8610: fax: 317-274-8630; e-mail: [email protected] © 2008 School Social Work Journal, Vol. 32, No. 2, Spring 2008

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"They Won't Come":Increasing Parent Involvement inParent Management Training Programsfor At-Risk Youths in Schools

Philip M. Ouellette and David Wilkerson

The absence of parents from schools is seen as an important factor related tothe significant number of adolescents at risk of school failure. Effective par-enting is known to be a key protective factor for adolescents at risk for schoolfailure and other maladaptive developmental outcomes. While evidence-basedparent management training models exist, their use has been limited by prob-lems regarding recruitment and retention when services are offered through

traditional means. We review the literature on parent involvement in schools,the effectiveness of parent education programs, and mutual aid activities.Logistical barriers to parent participation in parent management training pro-grams and other school-related activities are examined, and a strategy usingtwenty-first-century technology will be described as a means to increase par-

ent involvement in schools.

Keywords: at-risk youths; mutual aid; parent involvement; parent manage-

ment training; school failure; technology-supported strategy

"They won't come" is a summary statement that we often hear fromteachers, school administrators, and school social workers regardingtheir efforts to increase parent and family involvement in parent man-agement training programs and school-related activities. The absence of

Philip M. Ouellette, PhD. is associate professor at Indiana University School of SocialWork. David Wilkerson, MSW, LCSW is a doctoral student at Indiana University Schoolof Social Work. Address correspondence to Philip M. Ouellette, Indiana UniversitySchool of Social Work, 902 West New York Street, Indianapolis, IN 46202; tel.: 317-278-8610: fax: 317-274-8630; e-mail: [email protected]

© 2008 School Social Work Journal, Vol. 32, No. 2, Spring 2008

40 School Social Work Journal

parents and other family members from schools is seen as one importantfactor in the significant number of adolescents who are at risk of schoolfailure (Engvall, 2002: Henderson & Mapp, 2002). Parent and familyinvolvement in schools supports achievement and school completion andhas taken on increasing importance as we learn more about the conse-quences of school failure.

This article describes a strategy that uses contemporary technology toincrease parent and family participation in parent management trainingprograms and in collateral mutual aid support groups for families of at-risk youths in schools. The significance of parental involvement inschools and barriers to parent and family participation in parent man-agement training are examined. Possible avenues of additional researchand implications for social work practice in schools are discussed.

Literature Review

Consequences of School Failure and Parental Absence from Schools

Negative outcomes associated with school failure have includedunwanted pregnancy, poor mental health, alcohol and substance abuse,criminality, incarceration, underemployment, unemployment, andincreased rates of mortality (Richman, Bowen, & Woolley, 2004). Only 6percent of blacks ages twenty to twenty-three with at least a bachelor'sdegree were unemployed in 2000, compared to 32 percent of blacks whodid not graduate from high school. For adults, death rates have been two-and-a-half times higher for those with fewer than twelve years of educa-tion than for those with thirteen or more years: compared to high achiev-ers, low academic achievers are twice as likely to become parents by theirsenior year of high school (Alliance for Excellent Education, 2003). Inaddition to individual consequences of risk, collectively, at-risk adoles-cents are responsible for numerous social and economic costs associatedwith welfare supports, criminal justice costs, and social programs, thecosts of which have been estimated to run into the billions of dollars(Lehr, Hansen, Sinclair, & Christenson, 2003).

Parenting is a resource that moderates students' school behaviorssuch as attendance and classroom compliance (Hill, Catellino, Lansford,Nowlin, Dodge, Bates, & Petit, 2004) as well as academic achievementand graduation (Fan, 2001; Flouri & Buchanan, 2004; Gregory & Wein-stein, 2004). Effects have been seen to operate along two primary path-ways, the first being that of supervision or regulation, and the secondbeing that of support or nurturance. Research on family involvement inurban schools has found that parents of low socioeconomic status andminority urban parents who are involved in schools have been responsive

Increasing Parent Involvement 41

to services that provide them with opportunities to maintain or enhancetheir parenting capacity (Howland, Anderson, Smile, & Abbott, 2006).

However, as schools increasingly fail to reach achievement and grad-uation benchmarks under the No Child Left Behind Act, it appears thatthe resource of parental involvement in education is not being activelysupported prior to school failure (Gonzalez-DeHass & Willems, 2003).Few studies in the dropout prevention research focus on families as theprimary focus of intervention. Only one study conducted between 1980and 2001 focusing on parenting children in middle and high school wasfound (Lehr et al., 2003). Parent management training groups thatfocused on school behaviors were reported as uncommon in schools(Valdez, Carlson. & Zanger, 2005). The most prevalent practice has beencentered on youth-focused or school-based interventions, as opposed toparent- or family-focused interventions (Wilkerson & Ouellette, 2005).There are several reasons for this phenomenon, including pragmatic fac-tors such as accessibility of services, cost, time, and space constraints forinvolving families (Kumpfer, 1999). Research consistently documentsthe lack of parent involvement in school-based parent managementtraining programs, most especially at the high school level (Gonzalez-DeHass & Willems, 2003).

It is teachers' perception that their involvement with parents has alsobeen minimal. For the most part. teachers reported they only saw par-ents at twice-yearly parent-teacher conferences (Baker, 1997). Somehave suggested that high school teachers' minimal encouragement ofparent involvement extends beyond concerns about the capacity of par-ents to help to beliefs about the culpability of parents for poor studentperformance (DeCarvalho, 2001: Nakagawa. 2000). Some studies havefound that teachers who blamed parents for their students' under-achievement did so as a result of their lowered expectations, their nega-tive beliefs, and their own personal biases against students and families oflower socioeconomic status (Thompson, Warren, & Carter, 2004).

Schools have used various methods to encourage parental involve-ment in school activities and programs. These have included school-widemeetings, open houses, and parent-teacher contact through notes, tele-phone calls, e-mail, and conferences. Other strategies have included theprovision of opportunities for parents to engage in meaningful support-ive roles, for example, as classroom volunteer assistants or field trip mon-itors (Gonzalez-DeHass & Willems, 2003). Despite these attempts, poorcommunication between school representatives and parents continues tobe pervasive. Strategies commonly used to engage parents in schoolshave often led to disappointing results (Halsey, 2005; Ouellette, Briscoe,& Tyson, 2004).

42 School Social Work Journal

Parent Management Training Programs

Problems of at-risk adolescents have been categorized into groupssuch as various mental health problems; violence; use of alcohol,tobacco, and other drugs; poor diet; sexual activity; and school failure.Parent management training programs are one type of family-focusedintervention used to respond to the needs of at-risk youths and their fam-ilies. Parent management training programs are typically six- to eight-week training sessions where a small group of parents meets weekly witha group facilitator to discuss issues of behavior management, parent-child communication, and family relationships. There is ample evidencethat parent management training programs are effective for dealing witha wide range of the behaviors of at-risk children and adolescents andassociated mental health disorders (Lundahl, Heather, Risser, & Lovejoy.2005; Maughn, Christiansen, Jenson, Olympia, & Clark, 2005; Olfson,Gameroff, Marcus, & Jensen, 2003; Scott, 2005), disturbances in schoolachievement and adaptation (Shepard & Carlson, 2003; Valdez et al.,2005), and suicide risk (Toumbourou & Gregg, 2002). Parent manage-ment training programs have also been found to improve maternal psy-chosocial health (Barlow & Coren, 2003) as well as improve boys' behav-ioral adjustment in households headed by a single mother following theirparents' divorce (Martinez & Forgatch, 2001).

Parent management training has also been seen to increase parentingmanagement capacity for at-risk families and their adolescent children.For example, Scott (2005) found that minority and single-parent familiesand families of lower socioeconomic status participating in behavioralparent training groups experienced reduced child antisocial behaviorcompared to a wait-list control group, and that the effects were sustainedat follow-up. When parent management training is school based, it hasbeen identified as a potentially stabilizing influence that increasesresilience for school success (Richman et al., 2004).

Barriers to Involving Parents in Parent Management Training Programs

Despite the evidence of the effectiveness of parent management train-ing programs, barriers to involving parents in parent managementtraining programs prevail. Problems with recruitment and retentionhave been identified as major obstacles to parent participation, due todifficulties associated with accessibility, child care, distance, sociocul-tural stigma, time, and parents' perceptions of the social and profes-sional status of educators and of family education trainers (Gross,Julion, & Fogg, 2001).When parents have been successfully recruited for

Increasing Parent Involvement 43

parent management training groups, effectiveness has been limited byattrition, with as many as half of participating families failing to com-plete training programs (Flaherty, 1999).

Numerous variables appear to adversely affect retention. Theseinclude family factors such as parent stress, parent pathology, and theseverity of the child's problem, as well as other factors such as failure toattend to adult-level issues, trainer effectiveness, scheduling, accessibil-ity, distance, and child care issues (Buchanan, 2005). Differencesbetween parents' and school staff's ethnicity and income levels havebeen seen to limit retention (Lightfoot, 2004).

A wide range of responses to these barriers has been identified. Thesehave included increasing families' accessibility to programs by offeringtraining programs in community and school-based locations (Cunning-ham, Bremner, & Secord-Gilbert, 1993). attending to cultural and con-text relevance (Gross & Grady, 2002; Martinez & Eddy, 2005), attendingto engagement processes by initiating pre-group home visits (Dishion &Kavanaugh, 2003), providing incentives for participation (Gross et al.,2001; McCurdy & Daro, 2001), and including parents as resources forcollaboration in designing training content (Shepard & Carlson, 2003).

Solutions recommended for increasing retention have includedincreasing training effectiveness by contacting parents by telephonebetween group meetings (Dishion & Kavanaugh, 2003), providing childcare services during the training sessions, and using input from parentsto better understand parent preferences across a range of factors, includ-ing travel distance, time and day, session content, and trainer qualifica-tions (Buchanan, 2005). Empowerment approaches have also been rec-ommended to shift the process of training from one that is expert drivenand hierarchical to one that is collaborative and more egalitarian (Wilk-erson & Ouellette, 2005). Other strategies include engaging parents inproblem solving and arriving at guided solutions, as opposed to givingparents a prescribed solution to master (Cunningham, Davis, Bremner,Dunn, & Rzasa, 1993). Another strategy is to engage parents' help withsetting the training agenda in early sessions (Dishion & Kavanaugh,2003).

Mutual Aid Strategies

A collateral approach to the problems of attrition in parent manage-ment training that may hold some promise is mutual aid and self-helpgroups. The process and activity of mutual aid has been associated withpositive psychological and physical health, adaptive coping, and problem

44 School Social Work Journal

solving (Davison, Pennebaker, & Dickerson, 2000; Wituk, Shepherd,Slavich, Warren, & Meissen, 2000). Sheldon (2002) found that parentalinvolvement at school increased when parents were members of infor-mal social networks that included other parents who had childrenattending the same school.

In a systematic review of the qualitative research of formal and infor-mal support systems of parents receiving welfare support, Attree (2005)found that single mothers perceived themselves as less supported in childcare than married parents and they were more reliant on nonfamily sup-port networks. The use of formal supports was limited by parents' lack ofknowledge regarding their availability and parents' concerns aboutbeing perceived as inadequate. Mutual aid and self-help groups for singlemothers whose children are at risk for out-of-home placements due toneglect and abuse were also found to be effective (Cameron, 2002).

In conclusion, parent management training programs and mutualaid and self-help groups are seen as viable ways to increase the capacityof parents to respond to a wide range of problems associated with at-riskyouths in schools (Davison et al., 2000; Shepard & Carlson, 2003; Valdezet al., 2005; Wituk et al., 2000). The challenge for school social workers,educators, and human service professionals is then how to implementand/or facilitate these programs in ways that reduce the logistical barri-ers many families face. This often means holding face-to-face groupmeetings at a time and place convenient for all participants. Perhaps thetime has come for us to consider how we might use today's technology toexpand our capacity to reach out to the parents and families of at-riskyouths. The use of technology to deliver these services would directlyconfront difficulties associated with transportation, time constraints,lack of space for face-to-face meetings, and the distance parents have totravel to attend meetings. What follows is a description of how schoolsocial workers and teachers might use today's technology to facilitate theinvolvement of parents in parent management training programs andmutual aid support groups.

Increasing Parental Involvement through Technology

The biggest change created by globalization has been the technologi-cal revolution. We currently have a new generation of parents andyouths who are well versed in the use of computer technology andadvanced communication networks, including the Internet, cell phones,e-mail, instant messaging, and chat rooms. Technological advances inrecent years have revolutionized the way we communicate with each

Increasing Parent Involvement 45

other, the way we get new information, and even the way we learn.The continued integration of technology in our society will ultimatelyaffect all aspects of our everyday lives, making access to new informa-tion, resources, and support more effective, more widespread, and lessexpensive.

The use of technology is emerging as one way to increase parentinvolvement in schools. For example, Internet delivery of social supportand mutual aid has been a growing phenomenon whose appeal is evi-denced by the number of participants seeking mutual aid for a widerange of psychological and physical problems (Kyrouz, Humphreys, &Loomis, 2002). While there have been concerns about a digital dividebased on education and income, a parenting Web site was seen as effec-tive for single mothers, 68 percent of whom had average or below aver-age income levels (Sarkadi & Bremberg, 2005). Currently, schools havebegun to use technology to enhance parental monitoring of academicperformance through Web-based grade books. The idea of using tech-nology to enhance parent-school and community partnerships is notnew and has already been suggested as a possible strategy (Ouellette,2002).

With the continued enhancement of course management softwaresystems, improved access to broadband computer networks, and the cre-ative use of a number of new multimedia tools such as flash animation,streaming video, Web-based audiovisual presentations, and desktopvideoconferencing technology, we now have the ability to reach out toparents and families in ways not possible just a few years ago. If we canbring educational opportunities to students experiencing difficultieswith issues of time and distance through the creative use of technology.it is conceivable that we could offer parent management training pro-gramming and mutual aid support services to parents and families expe-riencing similar barriers. However, the use of technology to address bar-riers of accessibility, child care, distance, stigma. and time has yet to beapplied to synchronous and asynchronous parent management trainingprograms.

A Pilot Project

A pilot project that incorporates the use of technology to deal withlogistical barriers of recruitment and retention for parents involved inparent management training programs and mutual aid groups wasrecently developed. The aim of the project is to test the feasibility of usinga technology-supported instructional environment as a way of offering

46 School Social Work Journal

parent management training and creating a wireless telephone networkas a strategy for self-help and mutual support. Although the project isstill in the developmental and design phase, it will target a small group ofvolunteer parents whose adolescents attend inner-city middle and highschools within an urban school corporation. Table 1 displays the modelthat will be used for implementing the project. Desired outcomes for par-ents and youths for each strategy have been established.

Table 1. The Technology-Supported Parent Training andMutual Aid Strategy

Intervention Parent Outcomes Youth Outcomes

Strategy A Technology supported 1. Increased retention in 1. Improved academicparent management parent management performancegroup training (desktop 2. Increased capacity in 2. Improved schoolvideoconferencing) parent management behaviors

3. Improved homebehaviors

Strategy B Mutual aid telephone 1. Increased retention in 1. Improved academicnetwork group parent management performance

2. Enlarged social net- 2. Improved schoolwork as a result of behaviorsmutual aid telephone 3. Improved homenetwork behaviors

3. Increased parentalperception of support

Technology-Supported Parent Management Training

The parent management training group would be facilitated by atrained social work professional and delivered through the use of sixweekly computer-based desktop videoconferencing sessions with a groupof six parents. Desktop videoconferencing and interactive discussions arepossible with the use of server-based software from Macromedia Breeze.This electronic platform allows a small group of parents and a profes-sionally trained group facilitator (e.g., a school social worker) to cometogether from their homes using laptop computers and inexpensive web-cam digital cameras. Interactive communication between participantsbecomes possible via a regular DSL connection. Minimal computer skillswould be required of participants. Each weekly videoconferencing meet-ing would last for approximately one hour. Sessions would follow a struc-tured format, and flexibility would be built in to allow parents to activelyparticipate in determining the training content and the sequencing ofsome of the topics being discussed. The basic structure of the training

Increasing Parent Involvement 47

sessions is adapted from an empirically supported parent managementtraining model, the community parent education program COPE (Cun-ningham et al., 1998), which used training methods to increase chil-dren's positive behavior, decrease noncompliance, manage aggression,and decrease coercive and harsh parental responses. The program usedin the COPE model facilitates the development of self-efficacy and moti-vation through an attributional discussion method. In an attributionaldiscussion, participants discuss and identify problems of concern tothem and then determine solutions based on case examples of parentingdifficulties. For example, this may involve viewing a video vignette of afather becoming angry over a broken object. The father threatens toretaliate by breaking one of his child's belongings. Discussion questionswould emphasize self-reflection, self-efficacy, and self-control. For exam-ple, the facilitator may ask: "What would be the long-term outcome ofsolving children's problems with aggression like this father did?" Thetraining strategies in the COPE model increase parent commitment totrying out new parent management strategies. This discussion processcould be implemented through the use of desktop videoconferencing.This technology would allow for interactivity among the participantssimilar to the interactivity in a traditional face-to-face group trainingenvironment.

Wireless Telephone Network for Mutual Aid

In addition to the use of desktop videoconferencing, a mutual aid tele-phone support network would be implemented through the use of cellphone technology. Cell phones could be programmed specifically for theparents in the network and used to facilitate access between participantsin their assigned group. The parents participating in the mutual aid tele-phone network would be asked to make at least two calls per week togroup members and be available to receive at least two calls per weekfrom other parents in their group. Parents in the network would have anopportunity to discuss issues brought up during the weekly videoconfer-encing sessions. The primary purpose for the use of the cell phone net-work would be to provide a forum for parents to informally engage in top-ics of interest to them regarding issues related to their at-risk children.Examples may include a spontaneous discussion of behavior manage-ment techniques or challenges with adolescent behavior both at homeand at school. Survey questionnaires and structured interviews would beused to acquire information as to the frequency of their participation inthe network and its usefulness.

48 School Social Work Journal

Accessibility

To ensure that all participants in the project have access to the tech-nology, all participating families who do not have a computer and/orInternet access will be provided with a laptop computer with the neces-sary software. In addition, DSL connectivity will be provided. For familieswho do not have telephones, cell phones with time-limited connectivitywill be provided to all families who do not have access to telephones.

Recruitment of Participants

A number of at-risk students from two schools in two different schooldistricts will be identified by the school social workers in close collabo-ration with teachers. Researchers have found that successful strategiesto engage parents in school-related projects have included speaking tofamilies on a one-to-one basis after school, asking participating parentsto help in the recruitment of other parents, and providing parents withdetailed reader-friendly information about the project (Samaras & Wil-son, 1999). With this in mind, parents of at-risk youths identified by theschool social worker and teachers will initially be contacted by tele-phone or visited at home. All potential participants will be interviewedon a one-to-one basis to determine their interest in voluntary participa-tion. Once interest in voluntary participation has been determined,follow-up home visits will be used to provide parents with verbal orien-tation to the project as well as reader-friendly materials. In addition,training on the usage of computer desktop videoconferencing and howto access online supportive materials will be conducted at participants'homes. Once a basic orientation period has been completed, some par-ticipants will be encouraged to invite other parents at their school toparticipate in the project. The parent management training programwill only begin after the recruitment and orientation period has beencompleted.

Eligibility

Eligibility criteria for participation in the pilot project are the follow-ing: (1) parents must have an adolescent enrolled in the school where thepilot project is being initiated, (2) parents must demonstrate residencewithin the school district for at least eighteen months prior to the start ofthe project, and (3) parents must provide written consent to participateand to permit researchers to administer questionnaires as well as to

Increasing Parent Involvement 49

examine and analyze data from teacher observations and school recordsabout their children's academic and behavioral performance during thelife of the project.

It is hoped that parental involvement in parent management trainingprograms will be enhanced through the use of technology as a means todeliver this service. As a result, parent involvement with schools could bestrengthened in four important ways. The first is information sharingabout the school, classroom, and teachers. The second is parental dis-cussion of the value of education with children. The third is increasingparental supervision of academic performance (Sheldon, 2002). Thefourth is enhancing hope. Hope is seen by some researchers to be posi-tively correlated with parenting skills (Kashdan, Pelham, Lang, Hoza,Jacob, Jennings, et al., 2002). "Connecting an isolated parent with one ortwo other parents as a strategy to increase involvement at home orschool may be a promising avenue for schools that desire greater con-nections with families" (Sheldon, 2002, p. 313).

The model proposed here could lead to support services and family lifeeducation opportunities being offered to parents facing multiple chal-lenges. By providing access to the Internet to families from underservedcommunities and neighborhoods, the barriers of problems with childcare, distance, stigma, and time could be reduced substantially. Integrat-ing technology to deliver parent management training programs couldultimately serve to improve successful partnerships between parents,school social workers, and human service professionals. Although thereis evidence that parent management training programs do contribute topositive outcomes for at-risk youths in schools, logistical barriers for par-ent involvement have not yet been adequately addressed. The creativeuse of technology for service delivery has the potential to build parents'capacity to intervene with a wide variety of at-risk youth behaviors inschools and to significantly reduce the logistical barriers associated withtraditional service delivery methods.

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TITLE: “They Won’t Come”: Increasing Parent Involvement inParent Management Training Programs for At-RiskYouths in Schools

SOURCE: Sch Soc Work J 32 no2 Spr 2008

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