Professor Frances Gardner

fg for bbc
Professor of Child and Family Psychology
+44 (0)1865 270325
frances.gardner@spi.ox.ac.uk

Professor Frances Gardner is Professor of Child and Family Psychology in the Department of Social Policy and Intervention, and Fellow of Wolfson College. She has been variously Director and Deputy Director of the graduate programme in Evidence-Based Social Intervention and Policy Evaluation at Oxford since it began in 2003, as well as co-Director of the Centre for Evidence-Based Intervention. 

Her research focuses on the development and testing of parenting interventions for reducing child behaviour problems, and violence against children, in high, as well as low and middle income countries, with projects in the UK, USA, Eastern Europe, South Africa, Tanzania, Thailand and the Philippines. 

She investigates questions about transportability of parenting interventions across cultures and countries, about mechanisms of change, and about the subgroups of families and children for whom these interventions are most effective.

Research

Frances's research focuses primarily on Parenting interventions for reducing child antisocial behaviour and violence against children.  She researches the development of anti-social behaviour or conduct problems in children and young people, particularly how early parenting style influences young people's adjustment, and how this can help inform intervention development, and understand its mechanisms of effect. She conducts randomised controlled trials of community-based parenting programmes in several countries, as well as systematic reviews, investigating questions about effectiveness of parenting interventions for families and children, for reducing antisocial behaviour, and for reducing harsh parenting and violence against children. She has a particular interest in investigating differential effects of interventions for families and children with varying clinical characteristics and from different social and cultural backgrounds; and in parenting intervention mechanisms of change, and transportability across countries and cultures.  She has experience in direct observational methods for assessing parent-child interaction. 

Her secondary area of interest is in Risk and resilience in young people’s mental health:  this work investigates factors promoting poor mental health versus resilient outcomes in young people, using longitudinal studies of the development of antisocial behaviour and other mental health problems in young people, with low income families in the USA, and with orphans and vulnerable children in South Africa. She has also used UK national cohort data to assess how risk factors for antisocial behaviour, such as parenting, have changed over recent decades.

Her work has considerable impact on policy and practice; she advises to government ministries in many countries, as well as to WHO and UNICEF; she is a founder member of WHO’s ‘Parenting for Lifelong Health’ initiative; she serves on the Board of ‘Blueprints for Violence Prevention’, on a WHO Expert Panel on Standard of Evidence in Violence Prevention, and previously, the Scientific Advisory Board for the National Academy of Parenting Practitioners, and for SFI, the Danish National Centre for Social Research; and on a UNODC Expert Panel on worldwide family skills training. She is Associate Editor of ‘Prevention Science’, and serves on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology.

Current projects
Publications

  • Parenting for Lifelong Health for Young Children: a randomized controlled trial of a parenting program in South Africa to prevent harsh parenting and child conduct problems.

    2020
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    Journal article
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    Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines
    BACKGROUND:Parenting programs suitable for delivery at scale in low-resource contexts are urgently needed. We conducted a randomized trial of Parenting for Lifelong Health (PLH) for Young Children, a low-cost 12-session program designed to increase positive parenting and reduce harsh parenting and conduct problems in children aged 2-9. METHODS:Two hundred and ninety-six caregivers, whose children showed clinical levels of conduct problems (Eyberg Child Behavior Inventory Problem Score, >15), were randomly assigned using a 1:1 ratio to intervention or control groups. At t0 , and at 4-5 months (t1 ) and 17 months (t2 ) after randomization, research assistants blind to group assignment assessed (through caregiver self-report and structured observation) 11 primary outcomes: positive parenting, harsh parenting, and child behavior; four secondary outcomes: parenting stress, caregiver depression, poor monitoring/supervision, and social support. TRIAL REGISTRATION:ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT02165371); Pan African Clinical Trial Registry (PACTR201402000755243); Violence Prevention Trials Register (http://www.preventviolence.info/Trials?ID=24). RESULTS:Caregivers attended on average 8.4 sessions. After adjustment for 30 comparisons, strongest results were as follows: at t1 , frequency of self-reported positive parenting strategies (10% higher in the intervention group, p = .003), observed positive parenting (39% higher in the intervention group, p = .003), and observed positive child behavior (11% higher in the intervention group, p = .003); at t2, both observed positive parenting and observed positive child behavior were higher in the intervention group (24%, p = .003; and 17%, p = .003, respectively). Results with p-values < .05 prior to adjustment were as follows: At t1 , the intervention group self-reported 11% fewer child problem behaviors, 20% fewer problems with implementing positive parenting strategies, and less physical and psychological discipline (28% and 14% less, respectively). There were indications that caregivers reported 20% less depression but 7% more parenting stress at t1 . Group differences were nonsignificant for observed negative child behavior, and caregiver-reported child behavior, poor monitoring or supervision, and caregiver social support. CONCLUSIONS:PLH for Young Children shows promise for increasing positive parenting and reducing harsh parenting.

  • Shared Picture Book Reading Interventions for Child Language Development: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

    2020
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    Journal article
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    Child Dev
    Interventions that train parents to share picture books with children are seen as a strategy for supporting child language development. We conducted meta-analyses using robust variance estimation modeling on results from 19 RCTs (Ntotal  = 2,594; Mchildage  = 1-6 years). Overall, book-sharing interventions had a small sized effect on both expressive language (d = 0.41) and receptive language (d = 0.26). They had a large effect on caregiver book-sharing competence (d = 1.01). The impact of the intervention on child language was moderated by intervention dosage, with lower dosage associated with a minimal impact. Child age and caregiver education level were unrelated to child outcome. This review and meta-analysis confirms the promise of book-sharing interventions for enhancing and accelerating child language development.

  • Individual Participant Data Meta-Analysis: Impact of Conduct Problem Severity, Comorbid Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder and Emotional Problems, and Maternal Depression on Parenting Program Effects

    2020
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    Journal article
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    Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry

  • Combining Economic Strengthening and Parenting Programmes to Reduce Violence Against Children in Rural Tanzania: A Cluster Randomised Controlled Trial

    2020
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    Journal article
    parenting; economic strengthening; Low- and middle-income countries; child maltreatment; RCT

  • Parenting Among Mothers Who Experienced Child Sexual Abuse: A Qualitative Systematic Review.

    2020
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    Journal article
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    Qual Health Res
    Child sexual abuse (CSA) represents a significant public health problem. While CSA is associated with several adverse outcomes, recent attention has been given to its effect on maternal parenting. Despite a growing literature on this topic, a comprehensive systematic review has not been conducted. Thus, this review aimed to fill this gap. Several search strategies were used, including searches in academic databases. Two reviewers completed screening, full-text review, data extraction, and quality determinations. Extracted qualitative data were synthesized for the 108 studies meeting inclusion criteria. The primary themes emerging from women's accounts of the effects of CSA on their current parenting included abuse of child, breastfeeding, child-rearing practices, coping related to parenting, mother-child relationship, perceptions of child, perceptions of motherhood, and protection of children from abuse. Given the current lack of interventions designed for these mothers, the results of this review may aid in the development of evidence-based interventions.
    child sexual abuse, mothers, parenting, qualitative, systematic review, trauma
    • More
Supervision

Frances would be especially interested in supervising doctoral students wishing to work on the following topics: 
· Parenting and Family Interventions (primarily)
· Child Mental Health – prevention and treatment
· Development and Prevention of anti-social and risky behaviour in young people
· Child and Family interventions in developing countries
· Child maltreatment

Current students
News
Find out more

Frances Gardner - CV August 2017

Frances Gardner on Google Scholar