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Abstract
Using data gathered from 932 low-income, predominantly single mothers who participated in a large-scale randomized experiment evaluating family preservation programs, this secondary analysis examines the role of informal support in the context of maltreating families to gain a better understanding of support as a potential strategy for altering parenting practices. The study first establishes that the mothers' exposure to financial strain and negative life events heightens their levels of depression, and that depression reduces their positive and increases their negative parenting practices. Then the study examines whether informal supports or family preservation services moderate the effects of stressors on maternal depression and, in turn, improve maternal parenting.
The availability of higher levels of support was found to be associated with fewer stressors and better parental functioning; and over time, increased support contributed to reducing mothers' exposure to stressors and depressive symptoms as well as improving their positive parenting practices. But there was little evidence that either support or family preservation service moderated the relationships between stressors and depression, or depression and parenting practices. In fact, contrary to expectations, the positive effect of depression on negative parenting was larger for mothers with more support. Furthermore, with regard to the support that mothers received from their partners, the effect of depression on negative parenting was larger among couples whose relationships were more conflictual.
These findings suggest that while informal support can be beneficial to mothers' well-being and parenting, its effectiveness may crucially depend on the individual supporter's capacity to provide constructive parenting support as well as the quality of their relationship with the parent. Thus, child welfare professionals' efforts to incorporate informal supports into maltreatment interventions may be a complicated task of accurately assessing the parents' specific needs for support and deciding exactly what kinds and sources of support would most appropriately meet those needs.
