Criando con Amor: Promoviendo Armonía y Superación (CAPAS)
Local governments can invest in this strategy using State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds (SLFRF) from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA).
- This strategy can help address educational disparities and promote healthy childhood environments. The U.S. Department of Treasury has indicated that strategies that help achieve these outcomes are eligible for the use of Fiscal Recovery Funds.
- Investments in this strategy are SLFRF-eligible as long as they are made in qualified census tracts or are designed to assist populations or communities disproportionately impacted by COVID-19.
Program overview
Parent training program for Latino parents: Criando con Amor: Promoviendo Armonía y Superación (CAPAS) is a 12-week parenting program for Latino/a immigrant parents whose children exhibit mild to moderate behavioral problems. It has been shown to produce positive impacts on parenting outcomes and child behavior.
Implemented by nonprofit and education organizations: CAPAS can be implemented by religious organizations, K-12 schools, or other community-based organizations. Implementing organizations typically secure or allocate funding to provide programming for free to participating parents. CAPAS sessions are led by trained, fully bilingual facilitators.
Learning additional parenting strategies: CAPAS aims to help parents achieve five goals related to their parenting. Parents learn to promote positive involvement with their children, help children develop prosocial skills, decrease children’s challenging behavior with effective discipline, enhance parental supervision, and resolve conflicts with family members. Parents also practice skills as they work toward these goals, including listening to and respecting family members’ opinions, regulating emotions when interacting with children, giving clear directions, promoting and supporting kids’ school success, and strengthening their own mindfulness.
Incorporating cultural values: There are two different iterations of the CAPAS curriculum, each of which is specifically oriented around key cultural values. The first, CAPAS-Original, incorporates two salient values: superación, which involves increasing educational attainment and achievement beyond parents’ levels, and educación, which focuses on raising children to be competent and respectful adults. The second iteration, CAPAS-Enhanced, retains the content from CAPAS-Original but increases focus on cultural and contextual issues such as immigration challenges and biculturalism. CAPAS-Enhanced may be particularly helpful for participant groups made up of parents who have very recently immigrated.
- Strategies
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School climate and student behaviorSupports for expecting parents and families with young children
- Cost per Participant
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Not available
Two studies with rigorous designs demonstrate that Criando con Amor: Promoviendo Armonía y Superación (CAPAS) is a well-supported strategy for improving parenting skills and child behavioral outcomes.
A 2017 randomized controlled trial found that participants in CAPAS-Original demonstrated a statistically significant increase in parenting skills, including skill encouragement, supervision, family problem solving, and discipline-limit setting.
A 2017 randomized controlled trial found that participants in CAPAS-Enhanced demonstrated a statistically significant increase in parenting skills, including skill encouragement, supervision, family problem solving, and discipline-limit setting, and participants’ children showed lower levels of internalizing behaviors.
Note: This content is under review.
Recruit parents through community networks: Since the CAPAS program targets a narrow population segment - Latino immigrant parents with children who exhibit mild to moderate behavioral problems - targeted outreach is important to successfully recruiting the intended participants. Implementing agencies should build relationships with community-based organizations (e.g., faith-based organizations, K-12 schools) to create a referral network.
Use examples that feel relevant for participants: As the CAPAS curriculum calls for significant hands-on practice during sessions, it is important for lessons to incorporate examples into instructional and role play exercises that are relevant to participants’ experiences (e.g., conversations with children about a given conflict). Facilitators should generate examples through group discussions and incorporate them into later sessions rather than only pulling them from instructional materials.
Hire facilitators who can connect with participants: CAPAS is a culturally grounded program, which means that facilitators who can personally relate to the content in sessions may have an easier time earning trust from participants, sharing relevant anecdotes, and facilitating group discussions. Hiring and training facilitators who come from the specific community where the program is being implemented may help ensure these connections.
Address barriers to participation: It is important to ensure that participants are able to attend all scheduled sessions in order to receive the full program benefits. Addressing the barriers to this attendance includes services such as providing dinner and childcare during intervention groups, making midweek calls to remind parents about sessions, providing transportation (e.g., public transit subsidies), and hosting sessions at accessible community locations (e.g., schools or community centers).