Consumer Evaluation of an Ecobehavioral Program for Prevention and Intervention of Child Maltreatment

This study was conducted to evaluate parental satisfaction and acceptability of Project SafeCare, an intensive parent training program to prevent and treat child abuse and neglect with a focus on three areas of intervention: (1) home safety, (2) infant and child health care, and (3) bonding and stimulation. Social validation questionnaires were employed to evaluate the acceptability, the effectiveness, and the outcome of treatments based on parents' perspectives. The questionnaires were divided into four categories: outcome measures, process and procedures, staff performance, and training modes. Overall, Project SafeCare was reported to be very successful and parents reported high satisfaction with all three training programs. Parents rated the procedures, staff, and outcomes very positively. Although parents liked the videos and rated them positively, they seemed to prefer training by counselors to training by video. Data were collected on 45 families and the training was conducted over 15 weeks.