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Unfortunately, for some families, the above mentioned therapies, programs and resources are inadequate. What can be done for the parents who have "tried it all" to manage their out-of-control children but have met no success? P.A.C.T. is geared towards parents with children who bring new meaning to the term "out of control." These children may exhibit a wide range of destructive behaviors, psychiatric diagnoses, and have had various placement histories.

Some common characteristics include:
verbal and physical abuse towards parents and siblings	ADHD
blatant disobedience in the home delinquent behavior in school	Asperger's autism
fire setting	previous temporary institutionalization
destroying property	previous foster care
running away	placement or other out of home care

The parents of these children feel they are in a hopeless state. One core requirement of participation and success in P.A.C.T. is that parents must feel that they have "tried everything" to save their children and their family life. Many of these families have open cases with local child protective services, either because their dangerous situation has brought them to the attention of authorities, or because they have enrolled voluntarily in order to save their families. As mentioned above, some families have even had their uncontrollable children in temporary out of home care. For the P.A.C.T. family, none of these interventions bring success. In fact, success in P.A.C.T. is contingent on parents accepting the fact that every technique they have used in the past to control their children has been wrong, evidenced by the fact that these methods have brought no success.

Theoretical foundations
P.A.C.T. takes a unique approach, incorporating tenets of behaviorism and parent education. P.A.C.T. is based on a behaviorist approach to development centered on two main learning concepts: (1) Parents can become more effective parents by incorporating a set of learned techniques; and (2) Children's behavior is influenced by the types of responses they elicit from their parents. The program is explicitly not therapy. It is purely a training program for parents. P.A.C.T. holds that by changing the ways in which parents react to their children's violent behavior, parents will be able to shape their children's disruptive actions.

The P.A.C.T. program
Parents arrange weekly 15-minute meetings with the P.A.C.T. trainer during which they learn the 27 core principles of the program (See Figure 1). Meetings are arranged at a location of the parents' choosing; if a parent does not feel comfortable meeting in the home, a local restaurant or parked car will do. At no point does the P.A.C.T. facilitator meet the troubled child or children. The weekly sessions are conducted as follows:

• Parent is introduced to one of the 27 P.A.C.T. techniques. Techniques describe the cessation of parent behaviors that enable children's destructive behavior and are phrased as simple directives such as "Stop yelling."


• Once lesson is clarified, parent goes home to implement the new technique. Parent charts how many times he or she uses the enabler (e.g. yelling) while also charting the frequency of child's destructive behavior.


• At the next meeting, if parent has mastered the previous lesson, the next lesson is introduced. If not mastered, parent must continue working on the technique before moving to the next.

P.A.C.T. also includes a manual which parents read and refer to throughout their training. This manual provides background information on the program, goes into depth about each of the 27 enablers, and provides areas for charting the family's progress.

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© 2010 Andrew Gibson
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