Common components of parenting programs for children birth to eight years of age involved with child welfare services

Parent training programs have a long history of use in children's mental health and child welfare services. Several prominent models have more than 30 years of development and considerable data backing their effectiveness. Many agencies are intently seeking to provide evidence-based parenting interventions. Relying on ratings from the California Evidence-Based Clearinghouse for Child Welfare, this paper reviews the highest rated parenting interventions for children ages birth-3 and 4-8. The data show that the interventions for children birth-3 have less robust evidence behind their effectiveness but that higher rated programs share some emerging principles and a few common components. Programs designed for children 4-8 have considerably more evidence and appear to have substantial convergence of principals and common components. The authors propose that the use of the common components of parenting interventions for children 4-8 is likely to yield success even without a specific, manualized intervention that has previously been rigorously tested.