Early Motherhood in Migration: A First Report from FIRST STEPS - An Integration Project for Infants with an Immigrant Background

Abstract

Background: Children with an immigrant background tend to underachieve in German education with respect to their German peers. Furthermore they are more likely to live in high-risk environments. Quite a number of projects for the integration of these children exist. However most of them are hardly scientifically evaluated. The project FIRST STEPS focuses on the earliest integration of children with an immigrant background by supporting parenting capacities in the critical phase of migration and early parenthood. Furthermore it serves as a scientifically evaluated model project. Methods: By using a prospective randomized comparison group design the effectiveness of a psychoanalytically oriented early prevention program (intervention A) is compared to the outcomes of groups offered by paraprofessionals with an immigrant background (intervention B). Both interventions begin during pregnancy and last until the commencement of kindergarten when the children are about three years old. Over 270 families have already been recruited in Frankfurt am Main and Berlin. A variety of different instruments is applied during as well as after the intervention in order to assess social and family stressors, the quality of the parent-child-interaction, child attachment security, the affective, cognitive and social-emotional development as well as language development of the children, the children’s stress level and the social integration of the families. Results and Conclusion: The project is still on-going and aims at evaluating the implementation as well as the short- and long-term effectiveness of the psychoanalytically oriented intervention. A compared to the outcomes of intervention B (comparison group). First preliminary results show that FIRST STEPS is accepted by these “difficult to reach” immigrant families and indeed can support the early motherhood in migration.