Foster Caregivers’ Parenting Stress as a Moderator of Change in Coparenting Following Relationship Education

Abstract

Foster caregivers provide care to some of our most vulnerable children and often experience challenges that can interfere with family functioning, including the interparental relationship. Recent efforts have been made to provide couple relationship education (CRE) to foster caregivers to support their interparental relationship and enhance the quality of the foster home. Guided by family systems theory and adult learning theory, and using an actor–partner interdependence model, the present quasi-experimental descriptive study -examined foster caregivers’ parenting stress at baseline as a moderator of change in perceptions of coparenting support from pre-program (baseline) to post-program (4–6 weeks following CRE) to determine if higher levels of stress prior to CRE inhibits positive changes in coparenting support. While both men and women experience positive change in their perceptions of coparenting support, higher levels of parenting stress moderated positive change for men.