Featured Scholars : Joanne Martin

Assistant Professor, Department of Environments for Health, IU School of Nursing
jbmartin@iupui.edu

E-Parenting Project: Enhancing Home Visitations to Prevent Child Abuse

Home visiting is one of the most effective ways to reach families with risk factors for child maltreatment (CM) at the most likely time, birth to age 3. Joanne Martin’s E-Parenting Project combines three evidence-based interventions into an engaging, interactive, tailored computer program that can be used in home visiting programs to prevent child abuse and neglect. E-Parenting is a computerized version of Motivational Interviewing, Cognitive Retraining and SafeCare, each of which has demonstrated effectiveness in preventing CM.

Healthy Families America (HFA), a program of Prevent Child Abuse America, is widely implemented across the U.S., including 56 programs in Indiana. Trained, supervised home visitors develop trusting relationships and strive to improve parenting using well-accepted curricula. However, rigorous studies often find no effects on preventing CM. Expecting home visitors to become competent in evidence-based interventions and use them consistently is a challenge and may not be realistic. Computerized programs have tremendous potential to replicate proven interventions in a cost-effective manner. With funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDCP), a randomized trial is being conducted to see if risks for CM are reduced when mothers participate in HFA home visitation that include E-Parenting compared with regular HFA home visiting and no home visiting.

This research is an interdisciplinary collaboration which includes psychology, nursing, and public health, with investigators from the IU School of Nursing, Wayne State University School of Medicine and the CDCP. Each are recognized experts in preventing child maltreatment, but bring different perspectives. The goal is not only to prevent child abuse, but to help parents nurture their children and create a stable, safe family so children grow up healthy and able to reach their full potential.

Dr. Martin’s collaborative research to reduce child maltreatment in young children is a compelling example of how IUPUI's faculty members are TRANSLATING their RESEARCH INTO PRACTICE.