Child abuse: The relationship between parental age, gender, ethnicity, mental health status, and the outcome of child abuse intervention programs

Child maltreatment has been an increasing concern to policymakers, professionals and concerned citizens. Within the past decade numerous intervention programs have been introduced to stop child abuse. However, statistics indicate the number of reported cases continues to rise. There is concern that current intervention programs in operation are not meeting the expected goals and systematic program evaluation is lacking. This research investigated the outcome of parenting education programs designed to teach participants appropriate parenting practices, and attempted to determine if there is any relationship between program outcome and participants' age, gender, ethnicity, or mental health status. The study was based on the Adult-Adolescent Parenting Inventory (AAPI-2) pre and posttest scores of multicultural participants who completed a parenting education program. While it was hoped that the result from the data analyses would provide a better understanding of why parenting education programs are not as effective as expected, the results did not indicate any clear relationships between outcome and these variables. Suggestions were made for further research that includes investigating the relationship between participants' socioeconomic status and their ability to learn new parenting techniques.