The Resource Parent Curriculum (RPC) is a workshop designed to promote trauma-informed parenting among foster, adoptive, and kinship caregivers (i.e., resource parents). The ultimate goal of RPC is to improve placement stability and promote healing from traumatic stress in children who have been placed in out-of-home care. The current study examined data from multiple RPC implementation sites throughout the United States. This study used a pre-versus postworkshop design to assess resource parents' (n ϭ 314) improvement on trauma-informed parenting, perceived self-efficacy for parenting a child who experienced trauma, tolerance of child misbehavior, and whether parent characteristics moderated the impact of RPC on these outcomes. A repeated measures multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) demonstrated improvement from pre-to postworkshop on trauma-informed parenting F(1, 259) ϭ 11.96, p ϭ .001, 2 ϭ .044; parenting self-efficacy F(1, 259) ϭ 17.41, p ϭ .000, 2 ϭ .063; and tolerance of child misbehavior F(1, 259) ϭ 3.94, p ϭ .048, 2 ϭ .015, regardless of parent characteristics (e.g., age, gender race/ethnicity, and resource parent type). The results of the current study support prior work showing the effectiveness of RPC in improving resource parents' trauma-informed knowledge and attitudes and further demonstrates the effectiveness of RPC with a diverse range of resource parents.

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This study investigated the role of autonomic nervous system (ANS) coordination in response to emotion in girls’ and boys’ development of relational (e.g., ignoring, excluding) and physical (e.g., hitting, kicking) aggression. Caregivers reported on children’s relational and physical aggression at ages 6, 7, 8, and 10 years (N = 232, 50.4% girls, 46.6% Latinx). Sympathetic nervous system (assessed via pre-ejection period) and parasympathetic nervous system (assessed via respiratory sinus arrhythmia) reactivity were measured in response to video clips depicting fear, happiness, and sadness at age 7. Growth curve models indicated that ANS reactivity to sadness, but not to fear or happiness, was related to trajectories of relational aggression. In contrast, ANS reactivity to all three emotions was associated with trajectories of physical aggression. Effects differed across genders, indicating that distinct patterns of ANS reactivity to emotion may be involved in girls’ and boys’ development of aggression. Overall, these findings contribute to a growing literature documenting the role of ANS reactivity to emotion in aggressive behavior. Moreover, this study considers ANS reactivity to specific emotions, as related to both relational and physical aggression, and as differentially expressed among girls versus boys.

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