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An Evaluation of a Volunteer-Support Program for Families At Risk

A descriptive comparative design was used to evaluate the Cottage Community Care Pilot Project, a family support/child protection initiative linking trained volunteers with “vulnerable” first‐time parents. Fifty‐eight eligible and consenting families enrolled in the program and formed the interventi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Public health Nursing 2004-07, Vol.21 (4), p.297-305
Main Authors: Kelleher, Larni, Johnson, Maree
Format: Article
Language:English
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Summary:A descriptive comparative design was used to evaluate the Cottage Community Care Pilot Project, a family support/child protection initiative linking trained volunteers with “vulnerable” first‐time parents. Fifty‐eight eligible and consenting families enrolled in the program and formed the intervention group. A further 35 eligible families consented to participate in the evaluation and received assessments only and formed the comparison group. No differences were evident between the intervention and comparison groups on parenting readiness. For the intervention group (n = 25), improvements occurred in seven aspects of family functioning (items on the Scale of Family Functioning) when contrasted to the comparison group (n = 24). Two areas of family functioning were found to be statistically significant: access to social support (p = 0.02) and age appropriate expectations of infants (p 
ISSN:0737-1209
1525-1446
DOI:10.1111/j.0737-1209.2004.21402.x