Delivering Services to Incarcerated Teen Fathers: A Pilot Intervention to Increase the Quality of Father-Infant Interactions During Visitation

Article appearing in Psychological Services concerning analysis of a pilot intervention, the Baby Elmo or Just Beginnings Program, which provides incarcerated teen fathers with parenting training and visitation with their children and their infants. The study looked at 41 incarcerated teen fathers and their infants ranging from 1 to 15 months. During individual sessions, a trained facilitator prepared fathers for visits with their children by introducing key concepts such as following the child’s lead, using developmentally appropriate media to illustrate those concepts. After each training session, the incarcerated teen father interacted with his infant sand the visit was video recorded. Preliminary findings suggest that an intervention integrating visitation and appropriate media may be effective for incarcerated teen fathers.