Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

The Meaning of the Child Interview (MotC) – the initial validation of a new procedure for assessing and understanding the parent-child relationships of “at risk” families

The Meaning of the Child Interview (MotC) – the initial validation of a new procedure for... PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to report on the initial validation of a new method, called the “Meaning of the Child Interview” (MotC), to assess the psychological meaning all children have for their parents, but which in cases of risk, submerge or distort the child’s identity. The MotC analyses parental discourse using a method developed from the discourse analysis used to classify the Adult Attachment Interview together with patterns derived from the infant CARE-Index, a procedure that evaluates face-to-face parent-child interaction. This allows the MotC to illuminate how the parent’s thinking influences the developing relationship between parent and child.Design/methodology/approachParents are interviewed using the Parent Development Interview (PDI), or an equivalent, and then the interview transcript is classified using the MotC system. The coding method was developed from interviews drawn from the first author’s work with children and families in the family court system, and then tested with a sample of 85 mothers and fathers, 62 of whom were parents drawn from an “at risk” context. The parents were also videoed in a short free play interaction, using the CARE-Index.FindingsThe study found a strong correspondence between the levels of risk as assessed by the MotC patterns of parental representation of care giving, the risk to the parent-child relationship observed using the CARE-Index. There was also corroboration of the patterns of interaction identified by the MotC.Originality/valueThe results of the study provide good evidence for the Meaning of the Child as an identifiable construct, and as an assessment tool to identify and assess the nature of “at risk” parent-child relationships. MotC was developed in a clinical setting within the Family Court justice system, and is designed to offer assistance to child protection and mental health practitioners deciding how to intervene in particular parent-child relationships. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Journal of Children's Services Emerald Publishing

The Meaning of the Child Interview (MotC) – the initial validation of a new procedure for assessing and understanding the parent-child relationships of “at risk” families

Grey, Ben; Farnfield, Steve
Journal of Children's Services , Volume 12 (1): 16 – Mar 20, 2017
Download PDF
16 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/emerald-publishing/the-meaning-of-the-child-interview-motc-the-initial-validation-of-a-QBUvby5M4q
Publisher
Emerald Publishing
Copyright
Copyright © Emerald Group Publishing Limited
ISSN
1746-6660
DOI
10.1108/JCS-03-2016-0006
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to report on the initial validation of a new method, called the “Meaning of the Child Interview” (MotC), to assess the psychological meaning all children have for their parents, but which in cases of risk, submerge or distort the child’s identity. The MotC analyses parental discourse using a method developed from the discourse analysis used to classify the Adult Attachment Interview together with patterns derived from the infant CARE-Index, a procedure that evaluates face-to-face parent-child interaction. This allows the MotC to illuminate how the parent’s thinking influences the developing relationship between parent and child.Design/methodology/approachParents are interviewed using the Parent Development Interview (PDI), or an equivalent, and then the interview transcript is classified using the MotC system. The coding method was developed from interviews drawn from the first author’s work with children and families in the family court system, and then tested with a sample of 85 mothers and fathers, 62 of whom were parents drawn from an “at risk” context. The parents were also videoed in a short free play interaction, using the CARE-Index.FindingsThe study found a strong correspondence between the levels of risk as assessed by the MotC patterns of parental representation of care giving, the risk to the parent-child relationship observed using the CARE-Index. There was also corroboration of the patterns of interaction identified by the MotC.Originality/valueThe results of the study provide good evidence for the Meaning of the Child as an identifiable construct, and as an assessment tool to identify and assess the nature of “at risk” parent-child relationships. MotC was developed in a clinical setting within the Family Court justice system, and is designed to offer assistance to child protection and mental health practitioners deciding how to intervene in particular parent-child relationships.

Journal

Journal of Children's Services – Emerald Publishing

Published: Mar 20, 2017

There are no references for this article.