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 Dr. Gordon is an Emeritus Professor of Psychology at Ohio University, and a child and family clinical psychologist by training. After his internship in child psychology, he served as Chief of Psychology Service in an Army hospital for two years. He has been teaching and training clinical psychologists during his 28 years at Emory and Ohio Universities. His research has focused on family interactions and the development and evaluation of parent and family interventions to reduce children's risk for behavior problems. He has treated families privately during his career, and consults with organizations serving children and families, including juvenile courts. Dr. Gordon has developed or modified three parent or family interventions which are used nationally and internationally: Functional Family Therapy, the Children In The Middle program for divorcing families, and the Parenting Wisely CD-ROM program. All three programs have received recognition for Best Practices from leading professional review panels. He has published over 50 research articles in scientific journals, and has received numerous state, federal, international, and private foundation grants.
Neela Sakaria: Please tell us about Family Works and the Parenting Wisely Program.
Donald A. Gordon: Family Works is the company which publishes and distributes the Parenting Wisely(PW) programs. PW is a highly interactive CD-ROM that acts like a personal coach or tutor for parents. It teaches them skills for parenting their children and teens. PW is used privately by parents in their homes, a social service agency, or a public library. This privacy and the brief nature of the program (it is completed in 2-3 hours) makes it very appealing for busy and sensitive parents. Computer experience or even literacy are not required to use the program. It was developed to appeal to all parents.
Neela: Why is such a program important?
DG: It teaches skills essential for preventing or treating children's behavior problems, delinquency, substance abuse, and school failure. Many of these skills are not generally known or used by parents. The PW program may help parents from taking steps that are not likely to be very helpful to their children when they develop problems, such as strong punishment, blaming them, sending them to a residential institution for troubled kids, or dropping them off at a therapist's office.
Neela: How long did it take to develop Parenting Wisely and what media/technologies were used?
DG: It took four years to develop the first PW program, and one year to develop the next three programs. There is about 45 minutes of video scenes in each program, showing highly realistic family scenarios. Parents choose from 3-4 possible solutions to the problems depicted, then see their choices played out in video, then critiqued by the program. Graphics, text, audio as well as video are the media included. The program is played on a PC with any Windows program.
Neela: What kinds of results has the program gotten? Are you pleased?
DG: Over 10 studies have been conducted on the program. Results are: improved knowledge of good parenting principles and skills, improved use of such skills, substantially reduced problem child behavior, improved family relationships, reduced maternal depression. Yes, I am very pleased that these results can be achieved with such a brief program, and without professional involvement.
Neela: Some might argue that the PW program is a "quick fix" as opposed to more traditional therapy (17 plus hours). What would you say to such criticism?
DG: If you mean by traditional therapy a good, evidence-based family therapy approach (there are only several that meet this standard) or a parent eduction class approach, thos epproaches are effective. If you mean having the child see a therapist without significant parental involvement in the sessions, then there is no presuasive scientific evidence this helps. The proof is in the longevity of the results. We have effects last at least six months, and studies are underway to look at one and two year followup. Many, if not most families with children at risk for behavior problems, delinquency, and substance abuse will not participate in traditional therapy. So a quick program that works consistently is much better than a lengthier program that parents won't attend. In addition there is evidence that about 40% of parents will participate in lengthy parent education classes after using PW, so they are enticed by the PW program to want more. In these cases, it is not a choice of either or. For families with serious and chronic problems, I recommend both approaches. Neela: How did this project begin?DG: I met with a team of graduate students and professionals to see if we could produce a program that would be capable of being used inexpensively by thousands of low income and at- risk families. I had been training graduate students to go into families' homes to do family therapy. It was quite successful, but we couldn't reach many families because it was so time and labor intensive.
Neela: Are you working on any other projects?
DG: We are just finishing up our CDs for parents of younger children, aged 3-9, and for foster parents and residential center staff. I am a consultant to a group of French professors working on a translation of the PW CD into French.
Neela: Thank you and good luck.
To learn more about the Parenting Wisely program, visit www.familyworksinc.com.
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