Parental Prevention and Intervention Programs

¶ … Parental Prevention and Intervention Programs as effective measures in preventing Juvenile Delinquency

In identifying the role of the parents as potential factors contributing to the effectiveness of prevention and intervention as effective measures in preventing the occurrence of juvenile delinquency, the following specific objectives are given:

To determine the specific role that parents play in preventing and intervening with juvenile delinquency;

To identify the different parenting styles extant among the informants interviewed;

To identify, from these parenting styles, the specific skills, training, and program appropriate for parents and children in dealing with juvenile delinquency; and to create a family program that aims to curtail occurrences of juvenile delinquency among children.

These objectives were primarily derived from studies conducted by Kumpfer and Tait (2000), whose findings in identifying specific categories for an effective parent-children or family program in preventing juvenile delinquency have become the primary categorizations that will be used in this study as well. Thus, their three-component program, comprised of parent skills training, children skills training, and family skills training, will be the primary or general categories under which the study will focus on.

Under a dominantly qualitative paradigm, the researcher will adopt two qualitative methods: in-depth interviews and focus group discussions (FGDs). These methods are used because they will best elicit and generate information that would have otherwise been left undiscovered when quantitative methods would be used, such as survey or content analysis of extant family programs. Furthermore, interviews and FGDs will help the researcher generate more information about the study, such as identifying more parenting styles than what the literature has already given. In addition to this, these methods will also be able to show the opinions and feelings of informants regarding the issue. In effect, a qualitative approach is preferred because it is able to handle an issue that is critical and sensitive, such as family conflicts, parenting styles, and juvenile delinquency.

The informants of the study will be primarily made up of two groups: the parents and children. For the in-depth interviews, parents will be asked questions pertaining to their parenting styles, which include rules and procedures they impose upon their children and at home. The children of the parent informants were also considered as informants for the interviews, who will then give their opinion and feelings about their parents' rules and parenting style. The interview will provide a pseudo, indirect dialogue between the parents and their respective child/children. This strategy will prevent any unwanted conflicts between parents and children during the interview process, which are inevitable especially if one group voices out a contradicting point given by the other group.

For the FGDs, three groups will be formed and considered as the units of analysis for this method: group 1 will be the parents group; group 2 will be the children group; and group 3 will be a mixture of the first two groups. The researcher will invite as discussants the informants from the in-depth interviews. This will be done so that the discussants will have mastery of the topic at hand, thereby increasing the synergy and level of interaction among each member of the group. Also, another reason for choosing as discussants the informants from the interview is to allow the researcher to verify whether the informant's opinion or feeling about a topic will change when other factors have been included, such as external influence from other parents, children, or when faced with a parent-children interaction (group 3). Included in the FGD will be an assistant moderator and an observer, whose primary role is to take note of the kind of interaction taking place during the FGD. The observer shall take note of any power plays, dominance, or submissiveness happening among the members of the group, while the assistant moderator shall monitor whether the discussion is following the objectives of the study.