Building on research about low-income mothers’ perceptions of social support and well-being levels, this research will vary the types of support mothers receive to determine the most effective way to increase mothers’ well-being. The proposed study will be a quasi-experimental, longitudinal study that focuses on maternity groups as a space that provides mothers with essential parenting information in addition to emotional support. Mothers will be randomly assigned to either a control condition with daily access to free parenting supplies or a treatment condition where they will have access to the parenting supplies and be invited to join a maternity group. The participants will complete a pre-test survey and then an identical post-test survey six months later. The surveys will assess their perceived levels of social support and well-being. It is expected that mothers in the treatment condition will report higher levels of perceived social support and well-being as a result of attending the weekly maternity group. The results will stress the importance of developing policies that amend the absence of accessible support programs for low-income mothers. These programs should be dedicated to providing free supplies for mothers while helping them establish supportive social networks that increase psychological well-being.

This thesis explores the relationships between self-esteem and socio-economic factors and characteristics of maternity group home program participation. Self-esteem is used sometimes as the independent variable and sometimes as the dependent variable in this study. A sample of 268 women was used representing the data available in an administrative database on women admitted to the Villa Rosa program for the period from May 1998 to February 2009, after removing cases with too much of the self-esteem measure missing. Methods of analysis included; paired samples t-tests, independent samples t-tests, analysis of variance, repeated measures analysis of variance, standard multiple regression, sequential multiple regression, and multinomial logistic regression. Attempts were made to control for the influence of the several factors. The main findings of the research included: 1) Ethnicity was not found to be significantly related to discharge self-esteem. 2) Self-esteem of residents was found to be significantly healthier at discharge from the program than at intake to the program. 3) Self-esteem was not found to be significantly different between women who participated in a post-natal semi-independent living component of the program and those who did not when controlling for control variables. When the control variable of length of time in the program was removed self-esteem was found to be significantly healthier for women who participated in the post-natal semi-independent living component of the program than those who did not. 4) A significant difference was not found between the discharge self-esteem of women who reported as living with a disability at intake, and women who did not. 5) Self-esteem at discharge was found to be healthier with an increased number of days spent at Villa Rosa. 6) Less healthy intake self-esteem was associated with plans not to breastfeed. 7) More supportive attitudes of social support network as measured at intake were shown to be linked to healthier self-esteem at discharge. 8) Experiences of abuse were not shown to be significantly related to discharge self-esteem. Both support received from the significant findings, and a lack of support from insignificant findings, were found for several self-esteem theories.

This thesis explores the relationships between self-esteem and socio-economic factors and characteristics of maternity group home program participation. Self-esteem is used sometimes as the independent variable and sometimes as the dependent variable in this study. A sample of 268 women was used representing the data available in an administrative database on women admitted to the Villa Rosa program for the period from May 1998 to February 2009, after removing cases with too much of the self-esteem measure missing. Methods of analysis included; paired samples t-tests, independent samples t-tests, analysis of variance, repeated measures analysis of variance, standard multiple regression, sequential multiple regression, and multinomial logistic regression. Attempts were made to control for the influence of the several factors. The main findings of the research included: 1) Ethnicity was not found to be significantly related to discharge self-esteem. 2) Self-esteem of residents was found to be significantly healthier at discharge from the program than at intake to the program. 3) Self-esteem was not found to be significantly different between women who participated in a post-natal semi-independent living component of the program and those who did not when controlling for control variables. When the control variable of length of time in the program was removed self-esteem was found to be significantly healthier for women who participated in the post-natal semi-independent living component of the program than those who did not. 4) A significant difference was not found between the discharge self-esteem of women who reported as living with a disability at intake, and women who did not. 5) Self-esteem at discharge was found to be healthier with an increased number of days spent at Villa Rosa. 6) Less healthy intake self-esteem was associated with plans not to breastfeed. 7) More supportive attitudes of social support network as measured at intake were shown to be linked to healthier self-esteem at discharge. 8) Experiences of abuse were not shown to be significantly related to discharge self-esteem. Both support received from the significant findings, and a lack of support from insignificant findings, were found for several self-esteem theories.