Project SUPPORT - Detailed Report

Project SUPPORT is a home-based intervention that includes two primary components:

• Providing instrumental and emotional support to the mother during her transition from the women's shelter.
• Teaching the mother to implement a set of child management and nurturing skills that have been shown to be effective in the treatment of clinical levels of conduct problems.

Project SUPPORT delivery method:

• Therapists visit families weekly to conduct the sessions.
• The therapists are accompanied by child mentors who interact with the children in the home and model pro-social behavior. The child mentors are advanced undergraduate or post-baccalaureate students who receive specialized training.
• The child mentors actively work to build positive, supportive relationships with the children in their charge. This goal is accomplished by the mentor's generous and appropriate use of praise and positive attention. Child mentors are also proficient in using all of the child management skills taught in the Project SUPPORT intervention.

Child Management and Nurturing Skills Component

• Directly target child problems by teaching mothers to use child management and nurturing skills effectively.
• Through direct instruction and practice (via demonstration, role-plays, exercises, and homework assignments), mothers are taught skills with which to communicate more effectively with their children, facilitate a warm and supportive relationship with their children, increase pro-social and appropriate child behavior, and decrease inappropriate or problematic child behavior.
• Adapts to the needs of each family by systematically assessing each mother's beliefs, practices, and knowledge about parenting, each child's behavior patterns, and the relationships among family members.
• Meets the family's specific needs, with a focus on using the child management and nurturing skills to address those needs.
• Covers topics and teaches skills such as: developing realistic and age-appropriate expectations about children's behavior, playing with and listening to children, delivering contingent praise and positive attention, giving appropriate instructions and commands, delivering contingent negative consequences for noncompliance and aggressive behavior (teaching alternatives to yelling and hitting), setting limits, being consistent, providing good supervision, influencing children's beliefs and behavior, teaching by example, and understanding the effects of seeing violence (both in person and through the media).
• Based on programs of other researchers and reviews of best practices, with our own augmentations to address the circumstances of children in violent, low-income families.

Social and Instrumental Support Component

• Provides emotional support to the women during their transition from the shelter.
• Helps mothers build support networks by linking them to community agencies and organizations.
• Helps mothers obtain physical resources (e.g., financial help, furniture, household appliances) and social supports central to their efforts to become self-supporting.
• Addresses safety concerns.
• Trains mothers decision-making and problem-solving skills.

Project SUPPORT is rated a "2 - Supported by Research Evidence" on the Scientific Rating Scale based on the published, peer-reviewed research available. The practice must have at least one rigorous randomized controlled trial with a sustained effect of at least 6 months. For more information on the rating of a "2 - Supported by Research Evidence," please see the Scientific Rating Scale.

Jouriles E. N., McDonald, R., Spiller, L., Norwood, W. D., Swank, P. R., Stephens, N., Ware, H., & Buzy, W. (2001). Reducing conduct problems among children of battered women. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 69, 774-785.

Randomized controlled trial. Participants were 36 families (mothers and children) in which the mother had sought shelter because of relationship violence and had at least 1 child (4-9 years old) with clinical levels of conduct problems. Interventions consisted of social and instrumental support, training in problem solving skills and parenting training in application of positive and negative contingencies. Families were assessed on 5 occasions over 16 months after shelter departure; outcomes measures included the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL), the Symptom Checklist-90 Revised, and videotaped observation of child management skills. Compared with families receiving existing services, children receiving Project SUPPORT improved at a faster rate, the proportion of children displaying clinical levels of conduct problems was greatly diminished, and mothers displayed greater improvements in child management skills.

McDonald, R., Jouriles, E. N., & Skopp, N. A. (2006). Reducing conduct problems among children brought to women shelters: Intervention effects 24 month following termination of services. Journal of Family Psychology, 20, 127-136.

Same study sample as Jouriles, McDonald, Spiller et al., 2001 (above). Results indicated that at 2 years post treatment, 15% of children in families in the Project SUPPORT condition exhibited clinical levels of conduct problems compared with 53% of those in the existing services condition. In addition, mothers of children in the Project SUPPORT condition reported their children to be happier, to have better social relationships, and to have lower levels of internalizing problems, relative to children in the comparison condition. Mothers in the Project SUPPORT condition were less likely to use aggressive child management strategies and were less likely to have returned to their partners during the follow-up period. However, Project SUPPORT and comparison groups reported statistically equal recurrences of violence (38% vs. 47%).

Ezell, E., McDonald, R., & Jouriles, E. N. (2000). Helping children of battered women: A review of research, sampling of programs, and presentation of Project Support. In J. Vincent & E. Jouriles (Eds.), Domestic violence: Guidelines for research-informed practice (pp.144-170). London: Kingsley Publishers.

Jouriles, E. N., McDonald, R., Stephens, N., Norwood, W., Spiller, L. C., & Ware, H. S. (1998). Breaking the cycle of violence: Helping families departing from battered women's shelters. In G. Holden, R. Geffner, & Jouriles, E. N. (Eds.), Children exposed to marital violence: Theory, research, and applied issues (pp. 185-221). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.