This program is delivered to parents, with children who are 5 to 12 years old, who experience high levels of stress or trauma or who work in settings with continued risk and is intended to impact parents and children.

Adaptive Parenting Tools (ADAPT), a community-based parent-coaching program, is designed to provide parents with tools and resources to help them build resilience, strengthen emotion regulation, and improve family well-being.

In an internal randomized, controlled trial among predominantly White National Guard and Reserve families, participants in the intervention group demonstrated significant improvements in parenting, compared to the control group, at 12-months post-baseline (i.e., approximately 6 months after program completion). Mothers experienced improved parenting locus of control and emotion regulation and decreased post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms. Fathers demonstrated improved parenting locus of control only. Improved parenting practices were associated with significant improvements in child- and adult-reported child adjustment. Additional analyses indicated that a subset of trauma-exposed fathers, who had genetic susceptibility for problem drinking and were assigned to the intervention group, reported significantly more reductions in risky drinking compared to fathers who had genetic susceptibility and were assigned to the control group.

ADAPT is a parent-support program that seeks to enhance family functioning; increase positive parenting practices; strengthen parental adjustment; and prevent negative parent and child outcomes, such as anxiety, depression, mental health disturbances, and substance use. ADAPT covers basic parenting- and couple-related topics and also focuses on the more complex dynamics of parenting and enhancing emotional-regulation capabilities. Core parenting skills taught include the following:

• Teaching through encouragement;
• Discipline;
• Problem-solving;
• Monitoring;
• Positive involvement with children; and
• Emotion socialization.

ADAPT is delivered via in-person sessions to groups of 6 to 15 parents per group or online. The program can be delivered as a universal program to all families, as a selective program to at-risk families (e.g., families facing stressors such as deployment or PTSD), or as an indicated program (e.g., for treatment of children’s behavioral or emotional difficulties).

ADAPT was originally titled After Deployment: Adaptive Parenting tools and was developed to serve primarily National Guard and Reserve families; however, ADAPT currently serves military, veterans, first responders, immigrants, and refugees. This program was developed by researchers at the University of Minnesota and has been implemented with active duty military, Guard, and Reserve members and veterans across all of the Services. The program is now housed at Arizona State University, and recent work has focused on helping healthcare professionals whose parenting roles have been impacted by COVID-19.

Facilitators can be military (e.g., National Guard, Veteran) and non-military human service providers (e.g., school guidance counselor, social worker). Training is required and available in workshop, group, or individual format. Length of training ranges from 2 to 8 days. In addition, ongoing coaching is required and includes weekly or bi-weekly, 1-hour video conference calls. Please email info@adaptparenting.org for more information on training and costs.

Considerations for implementing this program include recruiting facilitators who have a suitable background, ensuring facilitators complete training, gaining participant buy-in, confirming participants have time to attend program sessions, and providing child care and homework help for school-aged children during sessions.

The Clearinghouse can help address these considerations. Please call 1-877-382-9185 or email Clearinghouse@psu.edu

If you are interested in implementing ADAPT, the Clearinghouse is interested in helping you!
Please call 1-877-382-9185 or email Clearinghouse@psu.edu

ADAPT is delivered in 14-weekly, 2-hour sessions.

Information on implementation costs was not located.

To move ADAPT to the Effective category on the Clearinghouse Continuum of Evidence, at least two evaluations should be performed demonstrating sustained, positive outcomes lasting at least two years from the beginning of the program or at least one year from program completion. At least one of these studies must be conducted independently of the program developer.

The Clearinghouse can help you develop an evaluation plan to ensure the program components are meeting your goals. Please call 1-877-382-9185 or email Clearinghouse@psu.edu

Contact the Clearinghouse with any questions regarding this program.
Phone: 1-877-382-9185 Email: Clearinghouse@psu.edu

You may also contact ADAPT by visiting https://www.adaptparenting.org/contact

https://www.adaptparenting.org/; https://crimesolutions.ojp.gov/ratedprograms/664; and Gewirtz, DeGarmo, and Zamir (2017).