Parenting programmes for the treatment of physical child abuse and neglect

Physical abuse and neglect of children are significant problems and changing parenting practices may be an important means of addressing them. This review examines the extent to which parenting programmes (relatively brief and structured interventions that are aimed at changing parenting practices) are effective in treating physically abusive or neglectful parenting. A total of seven studies of mixed quality were included in the review. The findings show that there is insufficient evidence to support the use of parenting programmes to reduce physical abuse or neglect (i.e. using objective assessments of abuse such as reports of child abuse; children on the children protection register etc). There is, however, limited evidence to show that some parenting programmes may be effective in improving some outcomes that are associated with physically abusive parenting. There is an urgent need for further rigorous evaluation of the effectiveness of parenting programmes that are specifically designed to treat physical abuse and neglect, either independently or as part of broader packages of care.