Childhood conduct problems are a costly public health problem and are five times more common in socially disadvantaged groups than they are in advantaged groups. Untreated, conduct problems have a poor prognosis, with increasing gaps between socioeconomic groups, and high rates of subsequent criminality. Incredible Years is a high quality parenting programme for reducing conduct problems and is widely disseminated in Europe. Many trials have shown Incredible Years to be effective but the potential effects of parenting interventions on social inequality are unknown. Some behavioural interventions (eg, smoking cessation programmes), although beneficial overall, can widen inequality gaps. Because single trials and aggregate-level meta-analyses are ill equipped for examining differential intervention (moderator) effects, we pooled individual-level trial data to assess the effects of Incredible Years on social equity. We did a systematic review and individual participant data meta-analysis by searching CINAHL, Embase, Global Health, Medline, and PsycINFO, for studies published from inception to March 15, 2019. We also searched the Incredible Years website library and consulted with experts, including the European Incredible Years mentors' network. We included data from all completed randomised trials of the Incredible Years parenting intervention in Europe that included children aged 1-12 years, including unpublished trials, without restriction on publication year or outcome measures. We included prevention (selective or universal) and treatment or indicated prevention trials (for children diagnosed or above the clinical cutoff for conduct problems). We excluded trials or conditions within trials that were not randomised, included additional non-parenting material (eg, child-focused interventions), or were abbreviated, non-standard versions of the usual Incredible Years intervention of 12-14 weekly sessions. We requested individual participant data from the study authors. The primary outcome was child conduct problems, assessed using the Eyberg Child Behavior Inventory Intensity (ECBI-I) scale. Moderators were analysed using multilevel modelling with multiple imputation. Of 15 European trials of Incredible Years parenting programmes (n=1696 children), individual participant data were unavailable for one trial and one trial did not assess the primary outcome. Children were aged 2-10 years (median 5·1), 492 (30%) of 1651 children were from an ethnic minority and 931 (58%) of 1614 were from low-income families. Families who received the Incredible Years intervention reported an overall reduction in child conduct problems (13·5 points on the ECBI-I scale, 95% CI 10·9-16·1). There were no differential effects by family disadvantage (indicated by poverty, lone parenthood, teenage parenthood, household joblessness, or low education), or ethnic minority status. We found no evidence for differential effects by social disadvantage, suggesting that Incredible Years is unlikely to widen socioeconomic inequalities in conduct problems. Furthermore, the programme might be an important tool for reducing social disparities and improving poor long-term outcomes in disadvantaged families because follow-up studies indicate that benefits persist. Clinicians and commissioners can be reassured that the programme is similarly effective for families from different backgrounds. UK National Institute for Health Research.

Objective: This work aimed to analyze parental burnout (PB) and establish a comparison between the times before (Wave 1) and during (Wave 2) the COVID‐19 pandemic.Background: The COVID‐19 pandemic brought additional stress to families. The pandemic could be particularly difficult for parents experiencing parental burnout, a condition that involves four dimensions: an overwhelming sense of exhaustion, emotional distancing from the child, saturation or a loss of fulfillment with the parental role, and a sharp contrast between how parents used to be and how they see themselves now.Method: A quasi‐longitudinal research design was adopted, comparing two cross‐sectional studies among Portuguese parents (N = 995), with an interval of 2 years between each wave of data collection. Participants were surveyed voluntarily through an online questionnaire located on the institutional web platform of the universities involved in the study. Multivariate analysis of covariance was used to take into account the associations among variables, alongside controlling the possible confounding effects.Results: Parents have overall higher parental burnout scores in Wave 2 than Wave 1, with increased exhaustion, emotional distancing, and contrast, but decreased saturation. Although parental burnout levels remain higher for mothers across the two Waves, the growth is greater for fathers than for mothers.Conclusion: Reconciling childcare with paid work is a stressful and new experience for many fathers. However, results suggest that even amid a crisis, some parents had the opportunity to deeply bond with their children.Implications: We expect this work to encourage stakeholders to consider proper intervention strategies to address potential parental burnout. Also, initiatives that strengthen gender equity within parenting context are needed.

Societal conditions impacting on parenting have radically changed during the past two decades. There is variation between and within societies depending on social, cultural, political and economic factors. Today, Early Childhood and Care (ECEC) services play an increasingly important role in supporting families with young children during birth to the age of compulsory education. Accordingly, the collaboration between families and early childhood professionals has emerged as an essential topic of educational research and professional development. The International Parent–Professional Partnerships (IPP) research study focuses on the contemporary challenges of the parent–teacher partnerships in early childhood education from a cross‐cultural perspective. The purpose of the research is to examine parent–teacher partnerships in ECEC services in Estonia, Finland, Lithuania, Norway and Portugal by looking into the national contexts and comparing these findings with each other. The research utilises both quantitative and qualitative analysis of survey data collected in the participating countries. The survey questionnaire focuses on teachers’ views of parents’ involvement in ECEC centres. The results show that there are differences in teachers’ approaches to parent–teacher partnerships between societies as well as within each country. Parents also differ in their capacity to develop and maintain partnerships with teachers. It seems that there are differences in the professional status of the teachers in each country, which are, in turn, connected to the parents’ role in the parent–teacher partnerships in ECEC services. This study aims to deepen the understanding of the nature of parent–teacher partnerships in contemporary contexts of early childhood education through cross‐cultural research, and to enhance the training and professional development of early childhood professionals. RÉSUMÉ: Au cours de ces vingt dernières années les contextes sociaux, économiques, culturels et politiques qui influent sur le statut et la fonction des parents ont considérablement évolué au sein d’une société et d’une société à l’autre. De plus, les structures d’accueil et d’éducation de la petite enfance jouent un rôle de plus en plus important dans l’accompagnement des parents des jeunes enfants, depuis la naissance jusqu’à l’âge de la scolarité obligatoire. Ceci explique la place importante qu’occupe, dans la recherche sur l’éducation précoce, l’étude des modalités de partenariat entre les familles et les professionnels des structures de garde et d’éducation. L’article s’appuie sur les données de l’étude The International Parent–Professional Partnerships (IPP) portant sur les enjeux contemporains du partenariat entre parents et professionnels de la petite enfance dans une perspective multiculturelle. Cette étude porte sur les formes de partenariat en Estonie, en Finlande, en Lituanie, en Norvège et au Portugal, qu’elle examine dans leurs contextes nationaux et qu’elle compare. L’étude s’appuie sur des analyses quantitatives et qualitatives de données issues d’une enquête réalisée dans les pays participants. Le questionnaire de l’enquête était centré sur les points de vue des enseignants sur l’implication des parents dans les structures de la petite enfance. Les résultats montrent que les approches des enseignants concernant le partenariat avec les parents diffèrent et ce, aussi bien au sein d’une même société qu’entre les différentes sociétés. La capacité des parents à développer et maintenir le partenariat avec les enseignants diffère également. Il semble que les différences existant au niveau du statut professionnel des enseignants dans chacun des pays influent sur le rôle des parents au sein du partenariat dans les structures de la petite enfance. Cette étude a pour but d’approfondir la compréhension de la nature du partenariat entre les parents et les professionnels dans les contextes contemporains de l’éducation de la petite enfance, par la recherche comparative, et d’améliorer la formation et le développement professionnel des praticiens de la petite enfance. ZUSAMMENFASSUNG: Die die Elternschaft beeinflussende gesellschaftliche Realität hat sich in den letzten zwanzig Jahren radikal verändert. Kulturelle, politische und wirtschaftliche Faktoren verursachen Unterschiede in der Elternschaft sowohl innerhalb einer Gesellschaft als auch zwischen verschiedenen Gesellschaften. Heutzutage wird als eine immer wichtigere Aufgabe der Tagespflege die Unterstützung der Eltern gesehen. Die Zusammenarbeit zwischen Familie und Tagespflege ist in den Fokus sowohl der Erforschung der Vorschulpädagogik als auch der Ausbildung von Fachpersonal gerückt. Die internationale Studie zur Elternpartizipation (The International Parent–Professional Partnerships, IPP) konzentriert sich auf die Herausforderungen der Zusammenarbeit von Eltern und Fachpersonal in der Kinderbetreuung. Theoretische Grundannahme der Studie ist das Verständnis einer kontextuell definierten Erziehung, m.a.w. einer auf der kindlichen Wirklichkeit beruhenden Erziehung. Ziel der Studie ist die Erforschung der Zusammenarbeit von Eltern und Fachpersonal in Estland, Finnland, Litauen, Norwegen und Portugal. Besonderes Augenmerk liegt sowohl auf den Bedingungen der Zusammenarbeit als auch auf den praktischen Unterschieden und Gemeinsamkeiten in den genannten Ländern. Für die Untersuchung wurden quantitative und...

There is a social gradient to the determinants of health; low socioeconomic status (SES) has been linked to reduced educational attainment and employment prospects, which in turn affect physical and mental wellbeing. One goal of preventive interventions, such as parenting programs, is to reduce these health inequalities by supporting families with difficulties that are often patterned by SES. Despite these intentions, a recent individual participant data (IPD) meta-analysis of the Incredible Years (IY) parenting program found no evidence for differential benefit by socioeconomic disadvantage (Gardner et al. in Public Health Resesearch 5, 1–144, 2017). However, it did not examine whether this was influenced by engagement in the intervention. Using intervention arm data from this pooled dataset (13 trials; N = 1078), we examined whether there was an SES gradient to intervention attendance (an indicator of engagement). We ran mixed-effects Poisson regression models to estimate incidence rate ratios (IRRs) for program attendance for each of five (binary) markers of SES: low income; unemployment; low education status; teen parent; and lone parent status. The multilevel structure of the data allowed for comparison of within-trial and between-trial effects, including tests for contextual effects. We found evidence that low SES was associated with reduced attendance at parenting programs—an 8–19% reduction depending on the SES marker. However, there was no evidence that this association is impacted by differences in SES composition between trials or by the attendance levels of higher-SES families. The findings underscore the importance of developing and prioritizing strategies that enable engagement in parenting interventions and encourage program attendance by low-SES families.