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Mom Power (MP) is a trauma-informed parenting intervention which aims to break the cycle of intergenerational risk transmission by promoting enhanced parent-child attachment, increased social support, connection to community services, and utilization of self-care skills. MP was developed to engage vulnerable families (e.g., mothers with trauma histories, low income, single mothers) and seeks to mitigate common treatment accessibility barriers for underserved populations through provision of childcare, transportation, and a trauma-informed/culturally sensitive milieu. Results from a community-based randomized control trial (RCT) in Michigan (MI) have shown that MP is effective at reducing maternal psychopathology, lowering parenting stress, decreasing parental hopelessness, and promoting reflective parenting; however, no studies have examined the feasibility of implementing MP outside of MI, nor the effectiveness of MP with additional samples (Rosenblum et al., 2017). The present study is a hybrid implementation/effectiveness design that is two-fold: (1) Implementation design to assess the feasibility of training rural, Appalachian community-based providers in the MP model, recruiting high risk mothers, retaining mothers in this 10-week intervention, and implementing MP groups with community-based partners (2) An effectiveness oriented, pre-post, within subjects design with mothers of young children who are attending MP groups in the community [n = 33 mothers; M maternal age = 26 (SD = 5) years; M child age = 12 months (SD = 15)]. Regarding implementation results, the MP training involved n = 31 community-based providers from 5 agencies (e.g., community mental health, foster care agency) and 3 university-based mental health training programs. In the 18 months since training, three 10-week MP groups have been completed (n = 25 mother-child dyads), and one group is currently being held (n = 8 dyads). Regarding recruitment, we have had great success reaching high risk families, having more family referrals than available group slots. Of the families served in TN thus far, 60% had DCS involvement, 46% were in substance abuse treatment, 68% endorsed ≤ 4 ACEs, 77% had clinically significant depression, 58% had clinically significant anxiety, 78% were single/had no co-parent, 81% had low educational attainment, and 100% were below the federal poverty level. Regarding effectiveness, following completion of the current group, we will present pre-/post- differences in maternal PTSD symptoms, emotion regulation, and parenting behavior, as well as examine the relationship between attendance and change scores.

MOM POWER: REPLANTING THE SEED Rebecca Otwell, BA & Diana Morelen, PhD, Department of Psychology, East Tennessee State University, Johnson City, TN Mom Power is a trauma-informed parenting intervention which aims to break the intergenerational transmission of risk by promoting enhanced parent-child attachment, increased social support, connection to community services, and utilization of self-care skills. Mom Power was developed to reach vulnerable families (e.g., mothers with trauma histories, low income, single mothers) and seeks to mitigate the barriers to access common for underserved populations through providing childcare, transportation assistance, and a trauma-informed and culturally sensitive milieu. This is a 10-week group (n = 8 mother-child dyads) with three individual check-in meetings, the first and last of which serve as collection points for pre- and post-group data. Mom Power was developed in Michigan and is currently being disseminated in Tennessee for the first time. Despite the novel nature of this intervention in Tennessee, data from its initial implementation in Michigan provides ample support for expected, positive outcomes from participation in current groups. In its pilot Tennessee implementation, Mom Power participants are 16 mother-child dyads from the local Tri-Cities area all referred by community resource partners. This presentation will summarize the Mom Power treatment model, briefly summarize the randomized control trial data from Michigan, describe the characteristics of the mothers served in the Tennessee pilot study (e.g., adverse childhood experiences score, depression, anxiety, income), and share preliminary findings for pre/post changes in maternal depression, maternal emotion regulation, maternal PTSD symptomology, and perceived stress. Improvements in these areas would have significant, subsequent implications for improvement of the mother-child experience and early intervention in the potential intergenerational transmission of risk, as well as for the effective implementation of Mom Power in the state of Tennessee.

This project is part of a community-based intervention research project in rural Appalachia called Mom Power. Mom Power is a trauma-informed parenting intervention developed to improve mental health and parenting among high-risk mothers with young children. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between maternal self-care beliefs, and maternal emotion regulation and coping skills. It was hypothesized that self-care beliefs would be negatively associated with emotion regulation difficulties and positively associated with coping skills. To date, 53 mothers oversampled for psychosocial stressors (e.g., low income, mental health difficulties, trauma histories) have completed self-report questionnaires on self-care, emotion regulation difficulties, and coping skills. Self-care beliefs were found to have a nonsignificant correlation with emotion regulation difficulties (r = -0.04) and a nonsignificant correlation with coping skills (r = 0.22). Though nonsignificant, the results add to our understanding of the relationship between these constructs such that there was a trend towards a positive relationship between self-care beliefs and coping, but not a relationship between self-care beliefs and emotion regulation difficulties. More research is needed on this topic to better provide for high-risk mothers.

We conducted a study to evaluate the effectiveness of Mom Power, a multifamily parenting intervention to improve mental health and parenting among high-risk mothers with young children in a community-based randomized controlled trial (CB-RCT) design. Participants (N = 122) were high-risk mothers (e.g., interpersonal trauma histories, mental health problems, poverty) and their young children (age <6 years), randomized either to Mom Power, a parenting intervention (treatment condition), or weekly mailings of parenting information (control condition). In this study, the 13-session intervention was delivered by community clinicians trained to fidelity. Pre- and post-trial assessments included mothers’ mental health symptoms, parenting stress and helplessness, and connection to care. Mom Power was delivered in the community with fidelity and had good uptake (>65%) despite the risk nature of the sample. Overall, we found improvements in mental health and parenting stress for Mom Power participants but not for controls; in contrast, control mothers increased in parent-child role reversal across the trial period. The benefits of Mom Power treatment (vs. control) were accentuated for mothers with interpersonal trauma histories. Results of this CB-RCT confirm the effectiveness of Mom Power for improving mental health and parenting outcomes for high-risk, trauma-exposed women with young children.

Children need safe, stable, and nurturing relationships with a caregiver for optimal development. Maternal childhood adversity, traumatic life experiences, and mental health challenges can adversely impact parenting beliefs and behaviors in ways that compromise a caregiver’s ability to create and sustain a healthy caregiving environment for their child(ren). In the professional world of infant and early childhood mental health (IECMH), policies, providers, and programs work together to promote optimal child and family wellbeing to reduce the intergenerational transmission of risk and to empower resilience in families and communities. The present study investigated the feasibility, acceptability, and effectiveness of the pilot implementation of an evidence-based IECMH program, Mom Power, in the Appalachian Highlands (northeast Tennessee and Southwest Virginia). Mom Power is a ten-session attachment-based parenting and self-care skills group for mothers with high psychosocial risk and their young children. Participants included 78 mothers from the Appalachian Highlands who were recruited from primary care settings and community agencies. Results indicated successful engagement of families with high psychosocial need. Attendance was positively correlated with social wellbeing and negatively correlated with parenting stress, and participants with high attendance had greater improvements in social wellbeing and decreases in postpartum bonding impairments than participants with low/moderate attendance. However, involvement with Mom Power overall appeared to result in the greatest improvements in maternal psychological wellbeing, parent-child relationship quality, and social connection; not necessarily the number of sessions attended. Further, content analysis of participant feedback revealed themes related to parenting skills as the most important and helpful concept taken from the group. Themes of increasing participant connection, program logistics, and making the program longer were mentioned as areas of improvement. The findings confirm the feasibility of conducting Mom Power in the Appalachian Highlands and offer insights that Mom Power is effective at strengthening protective factors and promoting resilience, even if participants do not have perfect attendance. Implications for future studies on Mom Power in this region are discussed.