Promoting First Relationships®: Randomized Trial of a 10-Week Home Visiting Program With Families Referred to Child Protective Services

We conducted a community-based randomized control trial with intent-to-treat analysis on Promoting First Relationships (R) (PFR), a 10-week home visiting program. The study included 247 families with 10- to 24-month-old children who had a recent, open child protective services investigation of child maltreatment. Families were randomly assigned to receive either the 10-week home visiting PFR service or a telephone-based, three-call resource and referral (R&R) service. Across postintervention time points, parents in the PFR condition scored higher than families in the R&R condition in parent understanding of toddlers' social emotional needs (d = .35) and observed parental sensitivity (d = .20). Children in the PFR condition scored lower than children in the comparison condition on an observational measure of atypical affective communication (d = .19) and were less likely than children in the comparison group to be placed into foster care through 1-year postintervention (6% vs. 13%, p = .042). No significant differences were found on measures of parenting stress or child social-emotional competence, behavior problems, or secure base behavior. Overall, the results show support for the promise of PFR as an intervention for enhancing parent sensitivity and preventing child removals for families in the child welfare system.