Group PCIT: Increasing access and leveraging positive parent pressure

Adapting PCIT to a group format is an innovative strategy to reach more families, especially in settings with workforce shortages. Another potential benefit for group PCIT includes the ability to promote peer support amongst the parents, which could increase engagement in care. This chapter will give an overview of efforts to date regarding the adaptation of PCIT to a group format. Research on group PCIT will be reviewed, highlighting a randomized-control trial that compared group PCIT and individual PCIT. This trial found that group PCIT has comparable clinical outcomes as individual PCIT, pointing towards its promise as a model to serve multiple families at the same time. Providing PCIT in a group format did not lead to differences in engagement outcomes. Other brief PCIT group models that have been implemented with parents will also be discussed, including evidence for providing group PCIT to incarcerated mothers and foster parents. An illustrative case example will describe the implementation of group PCIT, and the potential benefits and challenges of group PCIT will be discussed.