Background: Evidence-based practices are often viewed as lofty goals endorsed by wealthy academics in developed nations, but impossible to implement in other contexts. This article will provide evidence suggesting that, to the contrary, we can indeed scale up western-developed parenting interventions that can be both effective and warmly received by parents in diverse cultural and economic contexts. Methods/Results: This paper gives a brief overview of the ACT Raising Safe Kids Program and summarizes the results of evaluation studies done with parents around the world. It discusses specific strategies facilitators use to modify the program as necessary to fit cultural contexts while also maintaining fidelity, implementing the manualized curriculum under varied, and complex circumstances. Conclusions: It is hoped that the lessons learned from our work will inspire practitioners to adapt ACT or other programs to diverse contexts, evaluate those programs, and thereby improve the mental health and life trajectories of children and families around the world. Key Practitioner Message• Evidence-based parenting interventions work to increase nurturing and decrease harsh parenting practices.• The ACT Raising Safe Kids program is an example of a western-developed, evidence-informed program that is affordable, flexible, and highly portable; it can be implemented with caregivers from diverse cultures in virtually any setting.• Well-trained mental health providers and program implementers and evaluators can effectively work with parents from diverse backgrounds to reduce coercive parenting practices and prevent child abuse.

Abstract-Williams

Williams syndrome (WS) is associated with deficits in adaptive behavior and an uneven adaptive profile. This study investigated the association of intelligence, visual-motor functioning, and personality characteristics with the adaptive behavior in individuals with WS. One hundred individuals with WS and 25 individuals with developmental disabilities of other etiologies were included in this study. This study found that IQ and visual-motor functioning significantly predicted adaptive behavior in individuals of WS. Visual-motor functioning especially predicted the most amount of unique variance in overall adaptive behavior and contributed to the variance above and beyond that of IQ. Present study highlights the need for interventions that address visual-motor and motor functioning in individuals with WS.