Publication year: 2011
Source: Children and Youth Services Review, In Press, Accepted Manuscript, Available online 2 April 2011
Rachel, Barr , Natalie, Brito , Jaclyn, Zocca , Samantha, Reina , Jennifer, Rodriguez , …
The aim of the Baby Elmo Program is to establish a low-cost, sustainable parenting and structured visitation program for non-custodial incarcerated teen parents. The program is taught and supervised by probation staff in juvenile detention facilities and unlike traditional programs, this intervention is not based on increasing the teen’s abstract parenting knowledge, but rather in building a relationship between the teen and his child. The sessions target the interactional quality of the relationship by introducing relationship, communication, and socio-emotional enhancing techniques. Because the intervention is conducted in the context of parent-child visits, it fosters hands-on learning and increases the opportunity…
Research Highlights: ►Baby Elmo Program is an intervention targeting incarcerated teen parents. ►Targets quality of dyad relationship with socio-emotional enhancing techniques. ►Measured emotional responsiveness between father and child. ►Emotional responsiveness between father-child dyad increases across sessions. ►Increase in quality of relationship increases chances of maintaining relationship.