A large body of literature has documented the detrimental impact of life stressors and traumatic stressors in families. Family stress models document how stressful events impair children's adjustment by increasing parental stress and parents' negative and coercive interactions with children. Applying a family stress model, and a social interaction learning perspective, we have developed and tested parenting interventions for families affected by traumatic stressors, including war, homelessness, and domestic violence. ADAPT (Adaptive Parenting Tools) is a well-validated intervention for families affected by a parent's deployment to war. Three randomized trials of several formats of the ADAPT intervention demonstrated the effectiveness of both in-person and online formats of the program in improving parenting, parents' and children's mental health, and reducing family stress.
The current presentation documents the contextual modification of the ADAPT online program as a self-directed, multilingual online intervention for families forcibly displaced to the USA and early findings from a randomized controlled trial of the intervention. Parenting in the Moment/PIM provides 14 online modules in Arabic, Spanish, French or English that deliver parenting and stress management/mindfulness tools to help parents regulate intense negative emotions (i.e. trauma triggers), teach children through encouragement, family problem solving, effectively set limits, be positively involved with children, and socialize children's emotions. PIM was developed closely with a diverse range of families, community leaders, and social service agencies. The RCT is recruiting families forcibly displaced from the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America. and Asia. Preliminary findings from the first 100 families focus on sample characteristics, program usage, and initial findings examining change in parental efficacy and perceptions of family stress. Results, and implications for broadband refugee parenting interventions are discussed.