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.
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.
Shared Picture Book Reading Interventions for Child Language Development: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.
2019
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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.
Meta-Analyses: Key Parenting Program Components for Disruptive Child Behavior.
2019
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Journal article
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J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry
OBJECTIVE: Parenting programs are the recommended strategy for the prevention and treatment of disruptive child behavior. Similar to most psychosocial interventions, it is unknown which components of parenting programs (ie, parenting techniques taught) actually contribute to program effects. Identifying what parents need to be taught to reduce disruptive child behavior can optimize intervention strategies, and refine theories on how parenting shapes disruptive child behavior. METHOD: In two meta-analyses, we updated the evidence-base for effectiveness of parenting programs delivered at various levels of prevention and treatment of disruptive behavior. We searched six databases (eg, PsycINFO, MEDLINE) for randomized trials and coded the parenting techniques taught in each program. We identified the techniques associated with program effects in general, and for prevention versus treatment, and immediate versus longer-term effects, specifically. RESULTS: Parenting program effects on disruptive behavior gradually increased per level of prevention (universal d = -0.21, selective d = -0.27, indicated d = -0.55) and treatment (d = -0.69) (Meta-Analysis 1: 154 trials, 398 effect sizes). Three of 26 parenting techniques were associated with stronger program effects: positive reinforcement, praise in particular, and natural/logical consequences. Several additional techniques (eg, relationship building and parental self-management) were associated with stronger effects in treatment but weaker effects in prevention. No techniques were associated with stronger longer-term effects (Meta-Analysis 2: 42 trials, 157 effect sizes). CONCLUSION: Positive reinforcement and nonviolent discipline techniques (eg, applying natural/logical consequences) seem to be key parenting program techniques to reduce disruptive child behavior. Additional techniques (eg, parental self-management skills) might improve program effects in treatment, but not in prevention.
Prevention of child mental health problems in Southeastern Europe: a multicentre sequential study to adapt, optimise and test the parenting programme 'Parenting for Lifelong Health for Young Children', protocol for stage 1, the feasibility study.
2019
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Journal article
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BMJ Open
INTRODUCTION: Families in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs) face multiple challenges (eg, poverty and adverse childhood experiences) that increase the risk for child mental health problems, while the context may provide them with few resources. Existing prevention-oriented parenting programmes have been shown to be effective in reducing child behaviour problems and associated risk factors. This project has the overall goal of adapting, implementing and testing a parenting intervention in three Southeastern European LMIC and uses the Multiphase Optimisation Strategy and dimensions of the Reach, Effectiveness, Adoption, Implementation and Maintenance framework. It is implemented over three phases: (1) preparation, (2) optimisation and (3) evaluation. The preparation phase, the subject of this paper, involves the adaptation and feasibility piloting of the parenting programme. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: This protocol describes the assessment of an evidence-informed indicated prevention programme for families with children aged 2-9 years (Parenting for Lifelong Health for Young Children) for implementation in FYR of Macedonia, Republic of Moldova and Romania. In this phase, officials, experts, parents and practitioners are interviewed to explore their views of suitability and needs for further adaptation. In addition, a small pre-post pilot study will test the feasibility of the programme and its implementation as well as the evaluation measures in the three countries with 40 families per country site (n=120). Quantitative data analysis will comprise a psychometric analysis of measures, testing pre-post differences using ANCOVA, χ2 tests and regression analysis. For qualitative data analysis, a thematic approach within an experiential framework will be applied. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: The ethics review board of the Alpen-Adria University Klagenfurt and ethical review boards in the three LMIC sites have approved the study. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: NCT03552250.
child protection, clinical trials, community child health, mental health
The Promotive Effects of Social Support for Parental Resilience in a Refugee Context: a Cross-Sectional Study with Syrian Mothers in Lebanon.
2019
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Journal article
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Prev Sci
Exposure to war trauma increases the risk of negative individual and family-level outcomes. However, not all trauma-exposed individuals exhibit mental health or family dysfunction, and some function better than expected given their level of trauma exposure. Research with at-risk populations, including refugees, suggests that social support may promote positive mental health and parenting behavior in the face of adversity. We used cross-sectional data from 291 Syrian refugee mothers to test the role of perceived social support in promoting their psychological and parenting resilience, defined here as better than expected mental health and parenting behavior given level of exposure to war trauma. Psychological and parenting resilience were operationalized using the residual approach, which assesses the difference between mothers' actual score on mental health and harsh discipline measures, and the score predicted by their level of trauma exposure. Linear regression models were used to test for associations between mothers' perceived social support and their psychological and parenting resilience. Results showed that mothers' perceived social support was associated with both psychological and parenting resilience, including after controlling for covariates. Exploratory analyses further suggested that emotional support, but not instrumental support, was associated with mothers' psychological resilience. Social support may have a promotive effect on mothers' mental health and parenting behavior in a context of ongoing conflict and displacement. Identifying intervention strategies to increase social support for refugees, within the framework of a multi-layered intervention approach, could potentially contribute to children's psychosocial resilience via improved maternal mental health and parenting.
Mental health, Parenting, Refugees, Resilience, Social support
The Earlier the Better? Individual Participant Data and Traditional Meta-analysis of Age Effects of Parenting Interventions.
2019
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Journal article
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Child Dev
Strong arguments have been made for early intervention for child problems, stating that early is more effective than later, as the brain is more malleable, and costs are lower. However, there is scant evidence from trials to support this hypothesis, which we therefore tested in two well-powered, state-of-the-art meta-analyses with complementary strengths: (a) Individual participant data (IPD) meta-analysis of European trials of Incredible Years parenting intervention (k = 13, n = 1696; age = 2-11); (b) Larger, trial-level robust variance estimation meta-analysis of a wider range of parenting programs (k = 156, n = 13,378, Mage = 2-10) for reducing disruptive behavior. Both analyses found no evidence that intervention earlier in childhood was more effective; programs targeted at a narrower age range were no more effective than general ones.
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
