Understanding Initial And Sustained Engagement Of Spanish-Speaking Latina Mothers In The Legacy For Children Program (Tm): A Qualitative Examination Of A Group-Based Parenting Program

Culturally congruent parenting programs delivered during early childhood have the potential to support diverse families. Legacy for Children (TM) (Legacy) is a groupbased prevention program designed to promote child development by reinforcing sensitive, responsive mother-child relationships, building maternal self-efficacy, and fostering peer networks of support among mothers living in poverty (Perou et al., 2012). The Legacy program was translated and culturally adapted for Spanishspeaking Latina mothers and their infants with a feasibility trial conducted to determine the cultural congruency of the adaptation. Feasibility results were positive with no previous studies validating the adapted Legacy Spanish program. The current manuscript focuses on understanding factors of engagement of the culturally adapted model. Specifically, we examined the factors that were perceived to have enhanced or hindered both initial and sustained engagement in the adapted Legacy Spanish program for Latina mothers. Individual interviews were conducted with Latina mothers (N = 26) who attended the Legacy Spanish program. We used qualitative data analysis to identify broad themes in Latina mothers' responses. Themes emerged regarding the importance of using home-based recruitment strategies and pairing verbal information with written brochures to foster initial engagement. Sustained engagement themes focused on the provision of support from other Latina mothers in the Legacy group and the relationships with the group leaders. Having group leaders who were perceived as genuine, kind, positive, "good" at teaching, and persistent emerged as themes that facilitated initial and ongoing engagement. Barriers to engagement centered primarily on logistics rather than characteristics of the program itself. Thus, Latina mothers attributed importance to aspects of the curriculum, logistics, and implementation with respect to program engagement. Application of similar engagement strategies could enhance the success of early childhood parenting programs and linkages with early educational programming. (C) 2020 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.