Parenting in 2 Worlds: Pilot Results From a Culturally Adapted Parenting Program for Urban American Indians

Abstract

This study reports the implementation and feasibility of a culturally adapted parenting curriculum, Parenting in 2 Worlds (P2W), which we designed specifically for urban American Indian families by means of community-based participatory research and then pilot tested in three Arizona cities. Data come from matched pre- and post-test surveys completed in 2012 by 75 American Indian parents of adolescents aged 10–17 who participated in the pilot version of P2W. P2W is a 10-workshop program administered twice a week for five weeks by trained American Indian community facilitators. Parents completed pretest surveys during Workshop 1 and post-test surveys five weeks later during Workshop 10. Paired t tests assessed changes in parenting outcomes, cultural identity, and child anti-social behavior. Changes from pre- to post-test demonstrated statistically significant improvements in several parenting outcomes (discipline, involvement, self-agency, and supervision), a strengthened sense of ethnic and cultural identity and Native spirituality, and a decrease in the child’s anti-social behavior. These results, which show significant if preliminary improvements in parenting skills and family functioning, suggest the feasibility of implementing a culturally grounded parenting intervention for urban American Indian parents.

Pathways of Adaptation: Two Case Studies with One Evidence-Based Substance Use Prevention Program Tailored for Indigenous Youth

“…Adaptation decisions in the second iteration were driven by working with communities to identify core components to add, change, or adapt. This iteration of BZDDD can be classified as a deep-structure cultural adaptation (Okamoto et al, 2014b), like that of the Parenting in 2 worlds adaptation (Kulis, Ayers, & Baker, 2015) reflecting a method to infuse cultural views, beliefs, and values, into the curriculum.…”

Parenting in 2 Worlds: Effects of a Culturally Adapted Intervention for Urban American Indians on Parenting Skills and Family Functioning

“…In the second adaptation phase, the pilot version of P2W was delivered to 75 AI participants at three sites in different Arizona cities. The pilot test demonstrated that there were statistically significant improvements in parenting outcomes from pretests to post-tests, using the same measures examined in the current study (Kulis et al, 2015). …”

“…This analysis examines six widely used measures of parenting skills and family functioning that were primary targets of the intervention; the acceptable psychometric properties of these measures were verified in the study’s pilot phase (Kulis, et al, 2015). Each outcome was constructed as a mean scale from Likert-type responses to multiple items (reversing the valence as needed), with good to excellent reliability.…”

“…In partnership with a non-profit urban Indian 1 center with sites throughout the state, a two- phase CBPR process guided the cultural adaptation of the P2W curriculum (Castro, Barrera, & Martinez, 2004; see Kulis, Ayers, & Baker, 2015, for details of the adaptation process). In the first phase of adaptation, a minimally modified version of FPNG (i.e., changing Latino oriented language) was delivered to urban AI parents, and quantitative and qualitative data regarding the cultural fit of each curriculum lesson’s content, activities, and learning approach were gathered from participating parents, workshop facilitators, workshop observers from the research team, as well as four external and two internal curriculum experts (five of them tribally enrolled AIs) representing four universities.…”

“…Many of the cultural adaptations in P2W involved the incorporation of AI cultural values and common inter-tribal cultural elements, distinctive AI worldviews on rearing children, and family challenges specific to the AI urban experience (Reeves, et al, 2014; Kulis et al, 2015). Informants in the adaptation phases stressed the need to embed the intervention’s core elements in a value system common to different AI heritages, emphasizing cultural strengths.…”