Reference Catalog

The Role of the Home Visitor: How Intervention Improves Stressed Parent-Child Interactions

Luke Timothy Huber

• Early Head Start Home-Based Option (EHS)
• Healthy Families America (HFA)
• Nurse-Family Partnership (NFP)

Using an attachment theory framework, this study explores the influence that home visiting quality can have on stressed parent-child relationships. Parenting stress, quality of parent-child interactions, home visitor facilitation of parent-child interactions, and overall home visitor quality practices were examined from 197 mother-child dyads. Correlation analyses were conducted to determine the relationships between family characteristics, home visitor characteristics, and quality of intervention services. Moderation effects at varying levels of overall home visit quality and ability to facilitate parent-child interactions on the relationship between parenting stress and parent-child interactions were examined with Johnson-Newman analyses. A threshold effect emerged for both moderators at levels slightly below and above the adequate quality level, as determined by the HOVRS A+ (Roggman et. al, 2014). These findings revealed the impact home visiting quality practices and facilitation of interactions can have on mitigating the effect of stressed parent-child relationships and the need in the field to improve this. Further research should analyze the diverse facilitation strategies used in the field of home visiting and determine the best intervention techniques used. Along with this, provide more in-depth training to agencies on how to support evidence-based practices. (author abstract)

Finished

• Participant, Family, and Program Outcomes