The Impact of Relationship on Goal Attainment in a Home-Based Family Support Program

Abstract

Home-based family support programs provide early intervention to support families with young children. Home visiting models typically serve pregnant and parenting women with risk factors known to influence the caregiver-child relationship including history of trauma, low academic achievement, low income, limited support networks, maternal depression, and maternal substance use. Few, if any, home visiting models, however, were developed specifically to support families affected by maternal substance use. The Team for Infants Exposed to Substance use (TIES) Program is a home-based family support program exclusively serving families affected by maternal substance use. The model design and intensive services allow TIES participants to achieve significant positive outcomes in the program’s six goal areas: maternal substance use, parenting skills, child mental and physical health, maternal mental and physical health, family income, and family housing. Goal scores are assessed jointly by participants and staff throughout the program using a validated scale. Program staff hypothesize that goal attainment in these areas may be influenced by the therapeutic relationship developed between home visitors and participants. This relationship is assessed using the Working Alliance Inventory (WAI), a validated assessment of therapeutic alliance administered to both participants and staff. An analysis of 127 program participants shows that when controlling for home visitor WAI scores in multilevel models (MLMs), goal attainment scores improved from intake to discharge across all goal areas except for housing stability. These results stress the importance of the therapeutic relationship in maximizing TIES participants’ growth and success.