Interviewee

Professor Maria Jose Rodrigo Lopez, Professor of Developmental Psychology, Department of Developmental Psychology and Education, University of La Lagune, Tenerife, Spain

Article

Rodrigo MJ., Maiquez ML., Correa AD., Martin JC., Rodriguez G (2006) Outcome Evaluation of a Community Centre Based Program for Mothers at High Psycho-Social Risk. Child Abuse & Neglect, 30(9): 1049-64

Summary

In this podcast Hamish Holewa talks with Professor Maria Jose Rodrigo Lopez, who has been involved with a Spanish study evaluating a community centre-based program for mothers facing significant barriers to effective parenting. Hamish and Professor Rodrigo-Lopez discus her involvement in this program, how the program is run and it's effectiveness at supporting mothers to engade in positive parenting practices.

Transcript

Hamish Holewa: Welcome to IPP-SHR Podcasts, I'm Hamish Holewa and I'm speaking today with Professor Maria Jose Rodrigo-Lopez. Professor of Developmental Psychology, department of Developmental Psychology and Education, University of La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain. Professor Lopez has recently published an article titled, "Outcome Evaluation of a Community Centre Based Program for Mothers at High Psycho-social Risk," co-authored Maria Luisa Maiquez, Ana Delia Corea, Juan Carlos Martin and Guacimara Rodriquez. We start of today's Podcast by asking her to provide a brief summary on her work.

Maria Jose Rodrigo-Lopez: This article reports the outcome evaluation of a Spanish program, Apoyo personal y familiar. In English, Personal and Family Support Program. Of course, this program started with poorly educated mothers. Mothers who were living in risk with psycho-social conditions and I think the most remarkable feature of this program is that it is a community based and [ ] program. And also the way the delivery is through weekly group meetings so we perform the typical report comparison for the intervention group and comparison with the control group and we took measures on [ ] measures, on maternal beliefs and personal agency measures. I mean measures that have to do with the way the mothers perceived their parenting role and also child-rearing practices. For instance, inactiveness, coercion, negligent practices and we found out that the problem was quite effective, or very effective in changing the mothers' perceived competences. So they feel more self-efficacy, more internal control and also more empowerment. So they found out that at least the dedication to the children was higher and also we found some change in child-rearing practices at the level of parental belief. I mean the conceptions that they had about child development and about their education so well it was quite satisfactory, the results of the program.

Hamish Holewa: So it's not a quick fix then? Your program tries to change the underlying, fundamental aspects of how parents approach and think about parenting and child development. What are the community based programs that are helping to address this issue in Spain?

Maria Jose Rodrigo-Lopez: In Spain there are well developed initiatives to intervene with families. These families are referred by the [ ] agencies of Child Protection Services but the problem is that these programs are dealing with the most severe cases of child maltreatment. You know one of the decisions to be made is just placement of children from the family into foster care. So they can only work with a family for four or five months. I know this quite well but you know in four or five months it is difficult to change all the family conditions and maintain them at home. So this is one type of program but on the other hand we have programs but these programs are only devoted to home visitations. They are usually performed by local social services and you know, they're not very systematic programs and they are only taking care of the economical support directed to changing the financial views and financial practices.

Hamish Holewa: For those not familiar with your article, could you give us a practical overview of how the program is run?

Maria Jose Rodrigo-Lopez: Well, first we started with training of the social workers and psychologists who are working at the local services level and so usually these social workers or social agents are looking for a broad spectrum of low to high [socio-economic] families because we want to mix them up. Somehow they influence each other in the way they think and the way they express their ideas and it is good to have them talking about in groups of ten to twelve parents, or I must say, mostly mothers.

Hamish Holewa: So it's the group dynamic that provides a learning experience?

Maria Jose Rodrigo-Lopez: We do not talk about concepts, about tolerance, about general issues because these issues are biased, are socially biased and most of the parents want to comply with what is expected from them. So instead of talking about concepts, we are talking about child-rearing situations, about concrete child-rearing situations. So we first have to focus on a perspectivistic point of view. First, you have to put in another's point of view, which is very easy for the people [in the program]; in fact we love to put in another's point of view. We project ourselves into other positions, this is the first phase and in the second phase we simulate self-reflection; what about you, how do you react? And we talk about actions, feelings and also emotions so finally the session ends with personal commitment. I mean we ask, "during this week what are you planning to do with this", I mean we like to have parents suggesting by themselves the way they can move just a little bit of their daily life. And so the next week we ask for these commitments, how they have been accomplished and then we move to the issue of this week, so it's a very structured program. First a perspectivistic discourse and then a self-centered discourse. I mean, both are necessary you know because sometimes groups meet just for talking about how they personally live their life and this is not enough because if you talk only about your views, you don't enrich your point of view with others' views. So it is good to improve the capacity of the competences to put in a different point of view.

Hamish Holewa: And you have a mediator in your sessions?

Maria Jose Rodrigo-Lopez: The mediator, not an expert because the expert knows everything and wants to tell everything and wants to capitalize and to concentrate all the focus on him or her. The monitor has to promote the activity of the group in a very subtle way and this is very difficult for the psychologists who are used to work as experts.

Hamish Holewa: Fantastic, so it reduces the power imbalance within the group. Well thanks for speaking with us and it's great to here about your program.

Maria Jose Rodrigo-Lopez: Okay and again congratulations for your initiative.