Family Interaction Program: Parent-Child Interaction Therapy

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Family Interaction ProgramParent-Child
Interaction Therapy
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PCIT Team

• Director
• Dr Melanie Zimmer-Gembeck
• Co-ordinator
• Rae Thomas
• Team Members
• Angela Anthonysamy
• Michelle Hanisch
• Kate McCarthy
• Mark Scholes
• Anne Stuksrud

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Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT)

• Who is it For?
• Children with externalsing behaviours
• Aggression
• Noncompliance
• Tantruming
• Opposition
• Developed for caregivers with high stress, low
  frustration tolerance, and who use inappropriate
  discipline strategies
• Biological parents
• Grandparents
• Foster carers

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Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT)

• What Happens?
• Use of one-way mirror
• In-vivo coaching
• Two phases (not time limited)
• Relationship Enhancement Phase
• Discipline Phase
• Research based
• Collection of data questionnaires and videoed
  interactions
• Treatment vs. supported waitlist

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Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT)

• Who Refers?
• Department of Child Safety Mermaid and Beenleigh
  Offices
• Pediatricians
• Psychiatrists (of both parents and children)
• Psychologists
• Local schools
• Self referrals ? word of mouth from other
  families

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Goals of PCIT

• Strengthen parent-child relationship
• Education regarding effective behaviour
  management
• Increase positive interactions
• Increase positive communications
• Alter perceptions of child behaviour
• Make PCIT skills habitual
• Make PCIT skills generalisable

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Relationship Enhancement Phase

• Goal
• Enhance the quality of the parent-child
  interaction by creating or strengthening a
  positive parent-child relationship

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Relationship Enhancement Phase

• Specific Skills
• Praise the child
• Reflect the childs statements
• Imitate the childs play
• Describe the childs behaviour
• Enthusiastic play
• Ignore inappropriate behaviour (unless dangerous
  or destructive)
• Avoid asking questions, giving commands and
  criticising

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Relationship Enhancement Phase

• The Shift
• Comments and an understanding from the caregiver
  that it is how they behave and interact with
  their child that will promote behaviour change
• Becomes less mechanistic

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Discipline Phase

• Goal
• Decrease inappropriate behaviours too harmful to
  be ignored by learning to direct the childs
  behaviour when necessary using effective commands
  and specific consequences for noncompliance

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Discipline Phase

• Specific Skills
• Be specific with commands
• Every command stated positively Developmentally
  appropriate
• Individual rather than compound Respectful and
  polite
• Essential commands only
• Choices when appropriate
• Tone of voice neutral

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Outside of the PCIT Program

• Intensive work for both therapists and families
• Individual sessions offered
• Crisis counselling
• Depression counselling
• Anger management issues
• Domestic violence assistance
• Follow up with families outside of therapy time
• Liaise with government and non-government
  agencies for additional support for families

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Preliminary Outcomes
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Preliminary Outcomes

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Qualitative Interviews

• Im not frightened to go out places anymorethat
  terrified mehed be gone and youd be running
  around pulling your hair out. I can leave my
  knives out in the kitchen or in the drawerhe
  doesnt pick them up anymore, he doesnt touch
  themhe seems happier, he doesnt seem to be so
  moody.
• We had a very stressful family life before
  coming to this program, it has helped me manage
  Rs behaviour in a positive way rather than
  smacking and yelling and screaming at each other.

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Contact Details

• Parent-Child Interaction Therapy
• School of Applied Psychology
• Griffith University
• (07) 55 529 105