Coparenting Theory, Research, and Practice: Toward a Universal Infant–Family Mental Health Paradigm

The current study outlines the development of Coparent2Balance, a digital intervention aimedat enhancing coparenting among Italian couples with children aged 12-36 months. The studyaddresses the growing need for accessible coparenting programs, especially in the post-COVIDera, where virtual delivery can overcome barriers to in-person interventions. The researchquestion centers on creating a tailored curriculum based on McHale &amp;amp; Irace’s FocusedCoparenting Consultation (FCC) model, specifically designed for the Italian context. Todevelop this curriculum, a four-phase process was employed. Initially, a comprehensiveliterature review identified key themes from existing coparenting interventions. These themeswere then refined through semi-structured interviews with experts and parents, who providedinsights into essential content. The first draft of the curriculum was subjected to an onlinesurvey, allowing experts and parents to evaluate and suggest further refinements. The study’smajor findings include the consensus among participants on the importance of addressingcoparenting dynamics, communication, conflict resolution, and parent-child relationshipswithin the curriculum. The final Coparent2Balance program comprises five modules that focuson raising awareness about coparenting, building communication and conflict resolution skills,understanding children’s needs, and strengthening the coparental plan. Coparent2Balanceprogram could enhance coparenting practices, promote gender equality in parenting, and bewidely accessible to diverse families through its digital format. 

An online coparenting-based intervention for Italian non-divorced couples: The creation of the Coparent2Balance curriculum

Abstract Broad calls to narrow the role of police in American society have begun to include arguments to reduce the carceral responding to intimate partner violence (IPV) and add a stronger social response. The field’s improved understanding of lethality risk assessment; better classification of offender risk by past involvement with general violence or family only violence; and positive findings from trials of relationship strengthening interventions as couples counseling, restorative justice practices, and mediation, call for exploring relationship-strengthening approaches to complement more carceral approaches. Yet, a half century of adherence to traditional IPV service approaches that have steered away from relationship strengthening has generated an array of procedures and policies that need to change before the IPV services field can broaden and become more responsive. These changes are likely to be more fitting across racial and cultural groups and more suited for those seeking to improve relationship safety. This paper reviews these trends and considers legislative remedies that would facilitate the emergence of additional safe, empowering, relationship-responsive, trauma sensitive additions to IPV services. 

/pdf/strengthening-relationships-between-couples-to-respond-to-3cdy4p0x.pdf

Strengthening Relationships between Couples to Respond to Domestic Violence: a Commentary on Policy Changes Needed to Support this Evolution

Introduction When interventionists stimulate productive father-mother dialogues around coparenting, there are numerous potential benefits for families. Families stand to benefit from more positive involvement of fathers with both coparents and children, key contributors to healthy child developmental outcomes. In this report, we introduce a new strategy and rating system for helping practitioners and supervisors assess the nature and quality of coparenting-related dialogues and conversations in the context of couples group interventions. Method The system derives from analysis of 24 relationship-enhancement groups, 13 enrolling English-speaking couples and 11 enrolling Spanish-speaking couples, all parents of young children. All groups were co-led by a male-female team explicitly trained to focus on marital and parenting themes and supervised to address couples issues - not coparenting issues explicitly. All co-leaders spoke the native language of group participants. We documented how frequently coparenting events occurred, and how the nature and quality of events varied within and across groups. Results Overall, in both English- and Spanish-speaking groups expressly assembled to focus on marital and parenting issues, coparenting events occurred relatively infrequently. At the same time, both mothers and fathers appeared motivated to raise and discuss issues associated with their coparenting, and extended discussions about coparenting issues broached by the parents blossomed in approximately 37% of all instances. Process-oriented (rather than didactic) co-leader responses appeared especially helpful in scaffolding prolonged coparenting discussions. Discussion We propose that use of the system as a training, supervision and self-assessment tool can help clinicians become more consciously aware of how well their interventions succeed in promoting and scaffolding coparenting conversations during group interactions. 

A method and approach for evaluating coparenting events during couples group interventions

Tracing its beginnings to the mid‐1990s, coparenting theory and research, guided greatly by Minuchin's structural family theory, have deepened socialisation perspectives in the field of developmental psychology. Coparenting theory has perhaps had its largest impact in the field of infant‐family mental health, where empirical investigations of coparenting and family‐level dynamics have dovetailed with studies of family alliances and triangles and inspired creative interventions to support families of infants and toddlers. In this article, the authors retrace some of the early accounts of coparenting and triangular interactions during infancy, highlighting symmetries with analogue conceptualisations discovered in the field of family therapy. Emphasising key concepts and lessons divined from the infant‐family mental health literature holding value for the practice of family therapy, the article also recognises the dominant Euro‐Western bias that has shaped much of the extant literature to date. A closing section addresses two important areas calling for more concerted attention by infant‐family mental health experts and family therapists alike – under‐appreciated and misunderstood elements of men's psychology connected to their core self‐definition, and cultural distinctions in normal family processes. In both cases, if misread or misunderstood by the helping professional, the recipients of therapeutic services may experience failures of empathy.

Thinking three, revisited: infants, coparents, gender roles, and cultural contexts

This study examines the efficacy of a prenatal intervention designed to promote healthy coparenting relationships in families where low-income, unmarried mothers and fathers were expecting a first baby together. One hundred thirty-eight Black and mixed-race mother-father dyads participated. Coparent dyads were randomly assigned to either a treatment as usual (TAU) group, receiving referrals and navigation support to existing community services (control), or to TAU plus invitation to a series of six dyadic Focused Coparenting Consultation (FCC) sessions led by a male-female mentor team (intervention). Seventy-one percent of those prenatally assessed were later reassessed at 3 months postpartum. Both mothers and fathers contributed reports of coparenting, father engagement, physical and psychological intimate partner violence (IPV), and depressive symptoms. Intent-to-treat analyses indicated: (a) some evidence that mothers in the intervention group reported more positive coparenting communication at 3 months postpartum than did control group mothers; (b) mothers in the intervention group reported significantly more time spent by fathers with the child than did control group mothers; (c) parents in the intervention group had significant reductions in psychological IPV compared to parents in the control group; and (d) both mothers and fathers showed reductions in self-reported depression over time, with no differential impact of group. Findings suggest that the FCC intervention may produce modest but important benefits for unmarried, low-income Black coparents in the transition to parenthood. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

A culturally grounded prenatal coparenting intervention: Results of a randomized controlled trial with unmarried Black parents.

Handle everyday research tasks with reliable, citation-backed results

Your personal Research Agent to handle research tasks with citation-backed results

Popular Tasks used by Researchers

How can I help with your research?

Meet SciSpace

Get more enhanced response by uploading the PDFs you want me to reference.

No relevant PDFs in your library

SciSpace is the AI research assistant for academics. Run systematic literature reviews on 280M+ papers, and write papers with cited sources. Trusted by 1M+ students, PhDs & researchers.

SciSpace | AI for Research

Analyze PDFs

Code & Manuscripts

Funding & Grants

Literature & Patents

Medical & Clinical Data

Systematic Review

Visualize & Present

Web & Data

Build a Google Scholar-like website for your research.

Build a website

Create charts and images for your research

Create a Chart

Write a paper for submission to a journal

Draft a manuscript

Patent Search

Design eye-catching scientific posters in minutes.

Scientific Poster Generation

Systematic Literature Review

One task is running at the moment. Your messages will be shown right after.

Drag and drop or click here to browse

Loved by <highlight>1 million+</highlight> researchers

Extract a list of specific topics and their sources from unstructured text

Topics

Compare and analyze relevant papers that matches with your search

Papers

Get insights from PDFs and bookmarked papers from your library

My library

Recent searches

Try searching for:

Catch AI-generated content in scholarly and non-scholarly content

{ai} Detector

Ai Writer

Get PDF Summaries, highlighted text explanations 

Chat with PDF

Effortlessly create in-text citations and bibliographies in APA and 2,500 other formats

Citation generator

Get explanations, summaries, and answers on academic papers

Ease up your research workflow with {scispace}'s cohort of exciting AI tools

Elevate your academic writing skills and convey your ideas the way you want

Paraphraser

Explore our range of reading and writing tools

Your file is being prepared and should be ready in a few minutes. If it's a large file, it might take a bit longer. You can close this window, and we'll email you the file when it's done.

You have reached a maximum limit of <strong>{limit}</strong> columns in the table. Remove at least <strong>1</strong> column to add or create another one.

Chad Dubé

Author Tools

Chat about Author

Papers

A culturally grounded prenatal coparenting intervention: Results of a randomized controlled trial with unmarried Black parents.