Adults and Children Together - Parents Raising Safe Kids (ACT-PRSK)

Child maltreatment has emerged as a social problem that not only affects families, but the community as a whole. The lack of educational resources and a support system contribute to the problem of child maltreatment. Long-term negative effects of child maltreatment are preventable through research, training workshops, and parental classes, such as those offered by ACT-PRSK. Such preventative measures create awareness and bolster strategies to identify maltreatment at its early stages, presenting a valuable and reasonable public health approach in addressing the issue of child maltreatment. As described on the CDC fact sheet, “most children are maltreated by their parents versus other relatives or caregivers.” A prevention program focused on disseminating the knowledge and skills necessary to teach parents/caregivers proper display of affection and appropriate discipline creates a safer environment beyond the home, extending to the entirety of communities.

ACT-PRSK offers parents/caregivers the essential knowledge and resources to create a healthy family environment by addressing the following areas: “nonviolent discipline, child development, anger management and social problem-solving skills, effects of media on children, and methods to protect children from exposure to violence.”

The program follows a train-the trainers model where professionals are taught to work with families during an 8-week intervention program. ACT-PRSK provides a curriculum for the program that addresses child development and effective parenting techniques. Implementation of the program is possible in a number of diverse settings such as “childcare centers, family support organizations, hospitals, public libraries, churches, prisons, adult education centers, schools, community agencies, and shelters.”

The goal of the program is to teach parents/caregivers effective parenting skills, create a support system for their children, and equip participants with non-violent techniques to encourage a safe environment at home and in the community.

ACT program has been shown to prevent child maltreatment and promote positive parenting skills, including reducing physical violence towards children, improving knowledge of appropriate discipline, and improving parent methods for teaching children nonviolent social skills.

The ACT Against Violence Parents Raising Safe Kids Program: Effects on Maltreatment-Related Parenting Behaviors and Beliefs study utilized a community-based, non-randomized intervention to analyze the effectiveness of the program in preventing child maltreatment. The study included 92 participants from a mental health agency for children, an urban community center, and a court of common pleas. The participant families were sequentially recruited; the first 50 were assigned to the intervention group and the following 42 were assigned to the control group. The intervention program consisted of an 8-week parent training sessions, eight 90-120 minute group sessions.

The study revealed reduced physical violence towards children, such as spanking and hitting with objects, improved knowledge of appropriate discipline, refined beliefs about abuse prevention and parenting, minimized harsh and hostile parenting attitudes, and improved parent methods to teach children nonviolent social skills. Independent group t-tests were conducted on variables such as parent age, ethnicity, and income to determine any discrepancies between completers and noncompleters of the intervention program. There were no significant differences in attrition among differing demographic groups and differing locations of participant recruitment and between those who volunteered and those who were mandated for the study. Hence, any results obtained from the study will show statistical significance due to the intervention program, as opposed to confounding variables. Based on the ACT scale, the intervention group’s total performance on pre-test and post-test improved significantly as opposed to the comparison group. A post hoc paired t test statistical analysis was used to establish a significance of a p-value of 0.00.