1. Fostering Parent Participation in a Longitudinal Study: The Los Angeles Legacy for Children™ Experience
APHA 135th Annual Meeting
and Exposition
November 5, Washington D.C.
Judy Howard, Leila Beckwith & Dane Fitzmorris
University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)

2. Intervention Strategy in Legacy for Children™ at UCLA
Foster a sense of community
Mothers’-only groups
Child development information
Support development of parenting style
Mothers’/children’s groups
Knowledge about child development
Peer group interactions among the children
Modeling developmentally appropriate interactions
Opportunity to practice strategies
Foster a sense of community and friendship among the mothers, among the children, and among mothers with other mothers’ children
Mothers’-only groups provided the mothers with child development information and supported the mothers in developing their own parenting style
Mothers’/children’s groups fostered mothers’ knowledge about child development and peer group interactions among the children
Mothers’/children’s groups provided the opportunity for the mothers to observe the group leader modeling developmentally appropriate interactions with the children and to practice strategies taken from the mothers’ only groups

3. Retention Strategies for Study Participants
Group intervention design
Selection of staff
Perks for study participants

4. Retention Strategies for the Mothers’/Children’s Group Design
Build parental social ties by creating a neighborhood:
Mothers
Get to know each other’s children
Observe parenting behaviors
Children
Peer interactions
Friendships
Interactions with all Legacy mothers
Build parental social ties among the mothers by creating a neighborhood:
Allow each mother to know another mother’s infant/ toddler by way of a supervised child development setting
Expose each mother to the opportunity to observe the parenting behaviors of others in the group
Expose each child to another child over a 3 year period so that peer interaction and beginning of friendship could occur among the children and could be seen by their mothers
Expose each child to interactions with other mothers

5. Retention Strategies for the Mothers’-Only Group Design
Build parental social ties through shared reflections on parenting issues and parental identity:
Shared rules of group conduct
Consistent session format
One-on-One time with Group Leader
Shared rules of group conduct in order to establish trust and confidentiality
Each mothers’-only session had the same format---welcome, questions and comments, and a topic discussion that always included open-ended questions and individual choice about amount of participation
Each mother could have private time with the group leader, if she felt the need.

6. Retention Strategy Through Socialization After Each Group Session
Hot meals
Served after each group session
Fun Club
Held after each mothers’-only session
Fun Club: Included time for crafts, walks in Westwood Village to Starbucks and to the cookie store, and party planning

7. Challenges to Hiring a Group Intervention Leader
Skills and comfort level to work well with both adults and children
Knowledgeable about group dynamics—adults and young children
Knowledgeable about parenting issues, stresses, family belief systems
Knowledgeable about child development issues
Challenges to Hiring a Group Intervention Leader for Joint Task of Facilitating

8. Retention Strategy for Staff Stability Leading to Participant Satisfaction
Stable group leaders with a high level of professional skill and commitment
Qualifications:
Master’s degree
Experience in both parenting groups and child development
Personal qualifications
Non-judgmental, flexible, emotional stability, professional boundaries, sense of humor
Respect research data gathering efforts
In order to maintain stable group leaders with a high level of professional skill and commitment, we sought the following qualifications:
Master’s degree in a related field
Experience in both parenting groups and child development
Personal qualifications—non-judgmental, flexible, emotional stability, professional boundaries, sense of humor
Respect research data gathering efforts
Before hiring, job candidate was asked to role play a curriculum session with 2 senior staff playing the role of the mothers

9. Staff Stability During the 3 Years of the Main Study
3 out of 5 group leaders remained during the entire main study
1 group leader remained with her intervention groups, except for the final 2 months.
Able to attend the mothers’/children’s graduation celebrations
1 group leader was terminated after a few months
3 out of 5 group leaders remained during the entire main study
1 group leader remained with her intervention groups, except for the final 2 months.
Able to attend the mothers’/children’s graduation celebrations
1 group leader was terminated after a few months for failing to complete data forms

10. Perks as Part of the Retention Strategy
Transportation
Child Care funds
Health ombudsman (Public Health Nurse)
Birthday cards
Transportation
Provided to and from each session
$25.00
Provided to each mother for child care on days of mothers’-only sessions and every session for those with more than one child
Health ombudsman (Public Health Nurse)
Available to intervention study participants to provide assistance with health care issues
Birthday cards
For mothers and children

11. Retention Strategies That Proved Difficult to Provide
Hot meals
Transportation
FUN Club
Hot meals
Difficult to obtain and were expensive
Mothers complained about the lack of variety
Transportation
Instability among drivers, drivers inappropriate behavior with the mothers and vice versa, arranging for routes that did not exceed 45 minutes one way, arranging for pick ups in adjacent zip codes so that there was an adequate number of infant seats and adult seats, break down of vans, and changing state regulations for passenger vans.
FUN Club
Difficult to implement and mothers preferred the structured parenting sessions.

12. Thank You
More information is available at