Age of Child: 3

The Be Strong Families’ (BSF) Parent Café Program is designed to provide a space for parents and caregivers to engage in facilitated, peer-driven discussions that foster self-reflection and strengthen protective factors for families. The program is built around the Strengthening Families Protective/Promotive Factors Framework and focuses on building connections between parents, promoting resilience, and developing strategies for addressing the challenges parents face. The Parent Café model is flexible and can be implemented in various settings, including schools, community organizations, and child welfare systems. Facilitators lead discussions, offer resources, and guide parents through topics that enhance parenting skills, create safer home environments, and support positive child outcomes.

Adlerian Play Therapy (AdPT) is a therapeutic approach designed for children ages 3-10, drawing from the principles of Alfred Adler’s Individual Psychology. This approach helps children explore their emotions, beliefs, and social dynamics through play, a natural medium for self-expression. The therapy unfolds in four phases: establishing a trusting relationship, understanding the child’s lifestyle, gaining insight into their perceptions of self and others, and guiding them toward positive goals and constructive behaviors. Through these phases, AdPT is designed to support children in developing self-esteem, social interest, and problem-solving abilities. By providing a supportive and safe environment, the approach encourages children to navigate and make sense of their feelings, fostering personal growth, and helping them develop skills to interact in socially appropriate ways. The therapy aims to empower children with a sense of belonging and significance as they learn to understand and manage their relationships and emotions more effectively.

Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-up – Early Childhood (ABC-EC), developed for children ages 2 through 4, targets several key issues that have been identified as problematic among children who have experienced adversity and/or demonstrate socioemotional or behavioral concerns. These young children often behave in ways that push caregivers away. The first intervention component is designed to help caregivers reinterpret children’s behavioral signals so that they provide nurturance even when it is not elicited. Nurturance does not come naturally to many caregivers, but children who have experienced adversity especially need nurturing care. Thus, the intervention aims to help caregivers provide nurturing care even if it does not come naturally. Second, many children who have experienced adversity are dysregulated behaviorally and biologically. The second intervention component is designed to help caregivers provide a responsive, predictable, warm environment that enhances young children’s behavioral and regulatory capabilities. The intervention aims to help caregivers follow their children’s lead with delight. The third intervention component is designed to help caregivers implement calming strategies and be present psychologically and physically when their child is dysregulated.

Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-up – Infant (ABC-I) is rated separately on this website.

EEG Neurofeedback is a type of biofeedback therapy (also known as EEG Biofeedback) that involves monitoring and regulating brain activity to improve cognitive function, emotional regulation, and overall well-being. It is a noninvasive therapy that helps individuals train their brain to function more efficiently. EEG Neurofeedback is based on the principle that the human brain can adapt and change, a concept known as neuroplasticity. By using technology that provides real-time visual and auditory feedback, individuals ideally learn to regulate their brain activity.

F4C is an individual clinical intervention for fathers who have used violence with their partners and/or children and may have co-occurring substance misuse. F4C addresses 9 individually focused core topics, 4 co-parent communication topics, and 5 father-child focused topics in 60-minute individual therapy sessions over 18-24 weeks. In the context of a strong working alliance developed through focus on fatherhood, F4C employs a continual emphasis on reflective functioning and emotion regulation skills. Improvement in these targets in turn leads to reduced IPV and child maltreatment. F4C motivates the father to change by continually recognizing his desire to be a better parent and facilitating his ability to reflect on the experiences of his co-parent and children and learn skills to manage his emotions to improve outcomes for his family. It offers optional coparent and child participation in some sessions of the intervention when deemed appropriate and safe by the treating therapist.

NTDC, the comprehensive no-cost curriculum, is designed to tackle separation, loss, grief, and trauma in adoption and foster care. This cutting-edge resource offers adoptive, kinship, and foster parents flexible education that aims to empower them over the course of time and at the right time. Training is provided both as a synchronous classroom-based learning experience and through asynchronous “Right-Time” online modules that are available at any time for NTDC participants to build further knowledge, skills, and self-efficacy. While this training originated from key concepts to support children with intense service needs, it is designed to be used in any out-of-home placement, including with kin or adoptive caregivers.

Note: NTDC has also adapted to address the unique needs of indigenous communities; however, this separate manualized version is not part of this program review.

The Developmental Trauma and Attachment Program (DTAP) provides a comprehensive approach for children facing the lasting effects of trauma and attachment disruption. Through a fully integrated model combining attachment-focused therapy with trauma-informed practices, DTAP is designed to address foundational needs for trust, emotional regulation, and resilience.

DTAP also prioritizes caregiver involvement, creating a context for healing that is designed to strengthen the family system and foster lasting change.

BrightLife Kids — a CalHOPE program by Brightline — supports the behavioral health of every family living in California with kids ages 0–12 at no cost. No insurance or referrals are required to access this resource.

BrightLife Kids offers:

• Personalized coaching via video sessions and secure chats
• On-demand articles and videos
• Easy access to support with bilingual (English/Spanish) coaches and live translation in 17 additional languages
• Coach Specialists that connect families who have additional needs to the right resources in their community
• Peer communities & group coaching

BrightLife Kids coaches have diverse backgrounds as well as training and experience with LGBTQ+, BIPOC, and gender-diverse populations. They help families focus on skill-building for everyday challenges by tackling anxiety, stress, sleep, disorganization, and more.

Feel free contact the program for more information (see bottom of the page).

Dads Matter^HV (HV = Home Visitation) is a father inclusion enhancement designed to strengthen evidence-informed early home visitation services in ways that fully consider and include fathers’ roles, aiming to augment the preventive impact of home visitation on physical child abuse and neglect risk from either/both parents. The intervention is manualized and modular in nature, and designed to be flexibly delivered in conjunction with a standard home visiting program within the first 4 to 6 months of services. The intervention can be delivered flexibly in a variety of ways: during individual home visits with fathers and mothers, separately or conjointly, with service delivery occurring virtually, over the telephone, or in person. The intervention modules enhance and do not supplant standard home visiting services, guiding home visitors to assess fathers’ roles, engage, and intervene with biological fathers, working to reduce barriers to father engagement and build positive home visitor-father working relationships, improve the quality of father-mother co-parenting relationship, and directly support fathers in their roles as parents of young children.

Nurturing Skills™ for Families (NSF) is a model of the Nurturing Parenting® Programs designed to prevent child abuse and neglect by addressing key areas that contribute to a safe and healthy family environment. The program aims to promote positive family practices, enhance parental knowledge and skills, improve communication and problem-solving abilities, build emotional resilience, strengthen family bonds, address risk factors, foster community support, and encourage accountability.

This flexible program is tailored to meet the needs of families with children ranging from prenatal to 19 years old. The Lesson Guide for Parents contains over 80 individual lessons presented across 16 competency areas, with core competency lessons forming the program's basic structure. Additional lessons allow parent educators to customize the program to suit the specific needs of each group or family.

Although the program representatives state that the model can be used with all families, it is only rated in the Interventions for Abusive Behaviors on research with families involved in the child welfare system.