Speaker
Presentation in English
HELENA MOREIRA
UNIVERSITY OF THE COIMBRA. PORTUGAL
Helena Moreira is a clinical psychologist and Associate Professor at the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University of Coimbra (UC), Portugal. She is also an Integrated Member of the Center for Research in Neuropsychology and Cognitive-Behavioral Intervention at UC. Her research focuses on perinatal mental health and parenting, with a particular emphasis on mindful parenting and early parent–child relationships.
Her work has been focusing on developing, adapting, and evaluating evidence-based psychological interventions, including digitally mediated and blended programs (e.g., Emotion Detectives In-Out; Parents of Little Ones; Growing Together in Pregnancy and Postpartum), to promote parental mental health and mindful parenting from pregnancy through the postpartum period and early childhood. In addition, she conducts research in child mental health, with a focus on the transdiagnostic treatment of emotional disorders in children, particularly the dissemination and evaluation of the Unified Protocol for Children within the Portuguese context.
Digitally Mediated Parenting Interventions Across Developmental Stages
Parents play a central role in children’s socioemotional development, making parenting practices critical targets for preventive and therapeutic interventions aimed at promoting child and family mental health. The perinatal period and early childhood represent particularly sensitive developmental periods, during which parental well-being and parenting behaviors can have long-lasting effects on children’s socioemotional development and overall family functioning. However, access to evidence-based parenting interventions remains limited for many families. Digitally mediated interventions, including blended and self-guided formats, offer promising avenues to increase the accessibility, scalability, and dissemination of parenting support across developmental stages.
This symposium will present recent research on digitally mediated parenting interventions targeting different developmental periods and parenting challenges.
The first presentation will present findings from a randomized controlled trial evaluating the acceptability and efficacy of a blended version of the Unified Protocol for Children (the Emotion Detectives In-Out) for school-aged children with anxiety disorders and their parents, with a focus on changes in key parental outcomes.
The second presentation will present quantitative and qualitative data on parental acceptability of the Emotion Detectives In-Out intervention, including adherence, attendance, satisfaction, and parents’ perspectives on what they liked most and least, the strategies they continue to use, and the advantages and disadvantages of the blended format.
The third presentation will describe the development of the online self-guided version of the Parents of Little Ones – Baby Version® program designed for mothers of infants up to 12 months of age who present risk factors for, or early symptoms of, anxiety and depressive disorders, as well as elevated parenting stress. This intervention aims to promote maternal mental health and mindful and compassionate parenting during the first year of life.
Finally, the fourth presentation will present results from a quantitative study examining attitudes and acceptance of Portuguese pregnant women toward blended and self-guided digital interventions aimed at promoting mental health during pregnancy.
ORGANIZED BY
ASSOCIATE
WITH THE SUPPORT OF
