The Incredible Years Parenting and Child Treatment Programs: A Randomized Controlled Trial in a Child Welfare Setting in Spain.

Incredible Years (IY) is a well-established multicomponent group-based program designed to promote young children's emotional and social competence, to prevent and treat child behavioral and emotional problems, and to improve parenting practices and the parent-child relationship. This study presents the first randomized controlled trial carried out in Spain to test the effectiveness of the Incredible Years Basic Parenting and Small Group Dinosaur Programs in a sample of families involved in child welfare due to substantiated or risk for child maltreatment. One hundred and eleven families with 4- to 8-year-old children were randomly allocated to IY or to a control group who received standard services.

Dyadic Parent-Child Interaction Coding System (DPICS): Factorial Structure and Concurrent Validity.

Background: Comprehensive family assessments in Child Protection Services should include instruments with suitable psychometric characteristics. The present study aims to provide initial evidence of the factorial structure and other psychometric properties of the Dyadic Parent-Child Interaction Coding System (DPICS).

Method: Participants were 80 mother-child dyads with children aged 4-8 who received family support from Child Protection Services in Spain.

Promising observational instruments of parent-child (0-12 years) interaction within the child protection system: A systematic review.

Background: Parent-child interaction (PCI) is considered a critical environmental factor that affects child development. In the field of child and family intervention, assessment of caregiver-child interaction has great relevance for decision-making.

Objective: The aim of this study is to report the results of a systematic review of the best observational instruments to assess the quality of PCI, taking into account the most advanced protocols.

Implementation of an Early Preventive Intervention Programme for Child Neglect: SafeCare.

Background: Child neglect is the most prevalent type of child maltreatment. Research has shown that its sequelae can be more harmful than physical or sexual abuse, particularly at early ages, supporting the importance of preventive and early interventions. This paper presents the results of the first pilot implementation in Spain of SafeCare, a home visiting evidence-based programme for the prevention and treatment of child neglect in families with children aged 0-5 years old.

Adaptation of the Evidence-Based Practices Attitude Scale in Spanish child welfare professionals.

Background: Implementation of evidence-based practices (EBPs) into real-world settings represents an organizational change that may be limited or facilitated by provider attitudes towards the adoption of new interventions and practices. The objective of the present study was to analyze psychometric properties of the Evidence Based Practices Attitude Scale (EBPAS) Spanish version in Child Welfare professionals.

Method: The EBPAS 50-item version was administered to a sample of professionals (N = 240) providing services to children/adolescents and their families in Child Welfare Services from three Spanish regions.

Psychologists and child psychological maltreatment severity assessment.

Background: Psychological maltreatment (PM) is probably the most difficult child maltreatment form to detect and evaluate. The objective of this research was to determine the effect of an instrument developed to improve accuracy in the assessment of PM severity in Child Protection Services (CPS).

Method: Case vignettes representing different severity levels of PM situations were used.

Emotion recognition in fathers and mothers at high-risk for child physical abuse.

Objective: The present study was designed to determine whether parents at high risk for physical child abuse, in comparison with parents at low risk, show deficits in emotion recognition, as well as to examine the moderator effect of gender and stress on the relationship between risk for physical child abuse and emotion recognition.

Methods: Based on their scores on the Abuse Scale of the CAP Inventory (Milner, 1986), 64 parents at high risk (24 fathers and 40 mothers) and 80 parents at low risk (40 fathers and 40 mothers) for physical child abuse were selected. The Subtle Expression Training Tool/Micro Expression Training Tool (Ekman, 2004a, 2004b) and the Diagnostic Analysis of Nonverbal Accuracy II (Nowicki & Carton, 1993) were used to assess emotion recognition.

Empathy and child neglect: a theoretical model.

Objective: To present an explanatory theory-based model of child neglect. This model does not address neglectful behaviors of parents with mental retardation, alcohol or drug abuse, or severe mental health problems. In this model parental behavior aimed to satisfy a child's need is considered a helping behavior and, as a consequence, child neglect is considered as a specific type of non-helping behavior.

Dispositional empathy in neglectful mothers and mothers at high risk for child physical abuse.

This study investigates whether mothers who are neglectful and at high risk for child physical abuse present a deficit in empathy. Participants were neglectful mothers (n=37), mothers at high risk for child physical abuse (n=22), and nonmaltreating mothers (n=37). The Interpersonal Reactivity Index, a self-report measure assessing specific dimensions of empathy, was used to assess dispositional empathy.

Impact of stress and mitigating information on evaluations, attributions, affect, disciplinary choices, and expectations of compliance in mothers at high and low risk for child physical abuse.

The objective is to know if high-risk mothers for child physical abuse differ in their evaluations, attributions, negative affect, disciplinary choices for children's behavior, and expectations of compliance. The effect of a stressor and the introduction of mitigating information are analyzed. Forty-seven high-risk and 48 matched low-risk mothers participated in the study.

Gender differences in empathy in parents at high- and low-risk of child physical abuse.

Objectives: The present research was designed to study empathy in high-risk parents for child physical abuse. The main objective was to study if high-risk mothers and fathers, compared to low-risk mothers and fathers, presented more Personal distress, less Perspective-taking, less Empathic concern and a deficit in dispositional empathy toward their partner and children.

Method: Based on their scores on the Abuse Scale of the CAP Inventory [J.

Dispositional empathy in high- and low-risk parents for child physical abuse.

Objective: The present study was designed to investigate dispositional empathy in high-risk parents for child physical abuse, using self-report instruments. More specifically, the objective was to know if high-risk parents for child physical abuse, in comparison with low-risk parents, show deficits on main dimensions of dispositional empathy: empathic concern, role-taking, and personal distress.

Method: Based on their scores on the Abuse Scale of the CAP Inventory (Milner, 1986), 36 high-risk and 38 low-risk for child physical abuse participants were selected from a total sample of 440 Basque Country (Spain) general population parents.

Evaluation of a treatment program for abusive and high-risk families in Spain.

This article describes a six-year evaluation of a comprehensive treatment program for abusive families in Spain. The evaluation involved practitioners' clinical judgments, standardized measures, and follow-up data about children's living situations. The results were similar to those obtained by similar programs from the United States and other developed countries.

[Child maltreatment: social representation of the general population and the professionals working with children in the Caribbean area of Colombia].

Objective: The main objective was to know social representations about child maltreatment (severity, etiology, and intervention strategies) of the general population and the professionals working with children in the Caribbean area of Colombia.

Method: Sample was composed for 402 participants. From this pool of participants, 111 of them were working in child protection, 95 worked with children but not in the child protection system and 196 pertained to the general population.