ABSTRACT
The Schoolchildren and their Families study began in 1990 with a recruitment process that included announcements and fliers, and public service announcements in local media to parents of preschool age children. Interested parents were asked to complete and return by mail a brief questionnaire and were invited to an initial interview with a staff couple. This resulted in an initial participant sample of 100 two-parent families. Using a random selection procedure, parents were invited to (a) participate along with four or five other couples in a 16-week couples group with a marital emphasis (n=28), in groups led by a male-female team of mental health professionals; or (b) a 16-week couples group intervention with a parenting emphasis (n=27), led by the same staff; or (c) the opportunity for a once-yearly consultation (n=25) with the same staff couples in the 3 years surrounding their first child’s transition to elementary school. The parents were not aware of the variation in emphasis in the different couples groups (see details in chapter 11). An additional 20 couples who became a self-selected “no-intervention” comparison group when they refused the couples group intervention but agreed to be followed were not included in the intervention analyses, except for one intention-to-treat examination of the data. In almost all cases, the 4-month couples groups ended just before the children entered kindergarten.
