2-111 - The Face of Toxic Stress: Preliminary Consortium Findings on Concomitant Risks and Parent and Child Well-Being

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

This symposium reflects work from a consortium of researchers testing interventions for Early Head Start (EHS) families facing “toxic stress”, as conceptualized by Shonkoff, Boyce, and McEwen (2009). Here we present preliminary assessments of concomitant risks and well-being in the first cohort of families at 4 of 6 consortium sites supporting SRCD’s commitment to diversity by including a high-proportion of Spanish-speaking, ethnically-diverse and immigrant families. Site 1 (n=119) reports cross-correlations among risk and protective factors and demonstrates a high concordance among psychological and environmental risks. Site 2 (n=102) reports that both domestic violence and financial hardship predict increased parenting burden, and that children’s emotional functioning is predicted by parents’ psychological strain. Site 3 (n=80) reports that parents’ own early trauma predicts current mental health and parenting stress, and that many young children in the sample have already experienced trauma. Site 4 (n=67) reports that parents’ adversity history predicts current parent and child mental health, and that the effect of parents’ adversity history on child outcomes is fully-mediated by current parental mental health. Together these papers suggest that among EHS families, 1) numerous risks co-occur, 2) parents’ adversity history impacts their current mental health and their parenting, and 3) that EHS infants and toddlers are already demonstrating difficulties. Additional families and additional risk variables are being collected at all sites in this 5-year effort. Interventions with these high-risk families are in progress to improve parenting as primary caregiver support is the hypothesized key to making “toxic stress” “tolerable”.

Sub Unit

• Family Context & Processes

Chairs

• Cybele Raver, New York University

• Sarah E Watamura, University of Denver

Individual Presentations

• Families’ Experiences with Stress in a Typical Early Head Start Program - Presenting Author: Jason T Hustedt, University of Delaware; Jennifer A Vu, University of Delaware; Rena Hallam, Univ of Delaware; Myae Han, Univ of Delaware

• Testing Models of “Toxic Stress” for Parents’ and Children’s Emotion Dysregulation - Presenting Author: Eric Daniel Finegood, New York University; Cybele Raver, New York University; Clancy Blair, New York University

• Parenting in the Context of Trauma - Presenting Author: Brenda Jones Harden, University of Maryland, College Park; Carlomagno Panlilio, University of Maryland, College Park; Lisa Berlin, University of Maryland (system-wide page)

• Parents Adverse Childhood Experiences Impact Children via Current Parental Mental Health and Economic Hardship - Presenting Author: Sarah E Watamura, University of Denver; Philip Andrew Fisher, University of Oregon; Marina M Mendoza, University of Denver; Lisa Schlueter McFadyen-Ketchum, University of Denver; Eliana Hurwich-Reiss, University of Denver