Web-based training for foster, adoptive, and kinship parents

Abstract

Foster, adoptive, and kinship parents urgently need high quality in-service training to help them better understand and deal with serious behavior problems of children in their care. Parents are increasingly turning to the Internet for information, advice, support, and now, for formal training. Breakthroughs in technology have made the Web more accessible and more sophisticated, visually. For example, it is now feasible to use video or animation to model social skills, a mainstay of today's parent training interventions. The current study examined the effectiveness of two online courses — on lying and sexualized behavior — with a sample of foster parents from the Foster and Kinship Care Education Program of California Community Colleges. The intervention used interactive multimedia formats to present behavior problems, provide insights into their etiology, and offer parents practical steps to resolve them. Findings showed significant gains in parent knowledge for both courses, and in competency-based parent perceptions for the course on lying, with findings for the other course in the expected direction. Overall, user satisfaction and implementation fidelity were very high. Implications and future directions for this type of intervention are discussed.