The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a 2-component intervention for biological and foster parent (pairs) to improve parenting practices, co-parenting, and child externalizing problems. Participants were biological and foster parents (N=128) of primarily neglected children (ages 3 to 10 years) placed in regular foster homes. Biological and foster parents were randomly assigned in pairs to the intervention (n=80) or a usual care (n=48) condition. Intervention families received a 12-week parenting course (Incredible Years) and a newly developed co-parenting component. Key findings included significant gains in positive parenting and collaborative co-parenting for both biological and foster parents at the end of the intervention. At follow-up, intervention parents sustained greater improvement in positive parenting, showed gains in clear expectations, and reported a trend for fewer child externalizing problems. Findings supported the feasibility of offering joint parenting training to meet the needs of participating families and demonstrated that the co-parenting construct applied to families in the foster care system was amenable to intervention.

Although literature supports the association between harmonious coparenting practices and lowered child problems, little is known about coparenting influences among family constellations in the foster care system. Via a compilation of a new coparenting practices measure, we examined similarities and differences on foster parent-derived perceptions of support/flexibility, shared communication, conflict/triangulation, and total coparenting between foster and biological parents and their independent contribution to child internalizing and externalizing problems. Self-reports were gathered from foster parents (N=80) in 2 groups: kin and nonkin. As compared with nonkin, kin foster parents reported higher perceived support/flexibility, shared communication, and total coparenting. A tendency for higher conflict/triangulation among kin foster parents was also found. After considering foster parent group, psychological distress, and harsh discipline, hierarchical regression analyses revealed that perceived total coparenting and conflict/triangulation contributed to child internalizing and externalizing problems. Results support the linkage between perceptions of coparenting and child problems among caregivers (foster and biological alike) in kin and nonkin arrangements and highlight training in coparenting in general, and conflict management in particular, as an important intervention focus to reduce the high level of child problems in this vulnerable population.

In a sample of 124 parents (62 pairs of biological and foster parents) of children who were maltreated (M age = 6.2 years), this study compared self-reports of discipline practices between biological and foster parents toward a target child and explored the role of child, parent, and foster care ecology factors on discipline practices. Controlling for parental age, psychological distress, and marital status, biological and foster parents reported using similar levels of positive, appropriate, and harsh discipline. For biological and foster parents, child characteristics (being female, younger, and having more conduct problems) were associated with parental self-reports of less effective discipline. The study also found a positive association between parent-to-parent cooperation and effective discipline. These findings suggest that parenting interventions may need to move beyond simple presumption of deficits in parenting knowledge, and that children could benefit from enhancement of supportive relationships between biological and foster parents involved in the foster care system.

The purpose of this study was to determine whether asthma status and severity have an impact on the quality of life of urban elementary school children. Participants were 1292 caregiver-child dyads from six schools serving low-income, ethnic minority, urban families; 53% of the children were female. Caregivers provided data on the children's asthma diagnosis and frequency in the last 12 months of asthma symptoms, use of medication for asthma, emergency room visits, and hospitalizations. Using the KINDL, a generic quality of life instrument, children reported on their health-related quality of life (HRQL). Results revealed a high prevalence of current asthma (18%). No differences were found in HRQL based on having current asthma or the severity of asthma as assessed by proxy measures of health care utilization and limited functioning. These findings are consistent with previous research indicating that HRQL is influenced by several factors other than asthma status and severity. The implications of these results for intervention are discussed.

In this chapter, we discuss the coparenting construct as applied to a complex web of adult caregiving arrangements for young children raised in foster homes. We begin by examining the social ecology of the foster care system and the unique rules and regulations for family routines, engagement patterns, and communication channels between caregivers that it imposes, so as to understand how systemic characteristics impact on individual caregiving practices between biological and foster parents. We describe the pioneering work of Patricia and Salvador Minuchin and their colleagues with foster families in New York City in the 1980s, which has had a marked impact on child welfare reform efforts nationwide aimed at promoting more collaborative family relationships in foster care. We discuss Minuchin's structural family systems theory as a foundation for early family-to-family collaborative approaches and describe the Minuchins' influence on our own empirical and intervention work with biological and foster parents sharing a child placed in a foster home.Afterward, we summarize newer pilot work in which we have been examining the utility of coparenting observations of and self-reports from biological and foster "coparents," joint parenting training for the two sets of caregivers, and the nature of associations between different domains of coparenting