The term empowerment has become increasingly prominent in the realm of human endeavor. Empowerment refers to the processes through which individuals, organizations, or groups gain control over matters that are important to them, and the outcomes of these processes (Rappaport, 1987; Zimmerman, 2000; Zimmerman & Rappaport, 1988). The strength of people to shape and give meaning to interactions with their environment is central to the concept of empowerment (Holden, Crankshaw, Nimsch, Hinnant, & Hunt, 2004; Peterson, 2014). In the scientific context, the large scope of empowerment has led to a multitude of theoretical insights, but less empirical knowledge, due partly to the lack of context-specific instruments to measure this construct (Akey et al., 2000; Holden et al., 2004; Peterson, 2014; Vuorenmaa et al., 2014).
Since the 1980s in The Netherlands, value has increasingly been attached to the empowerment of clients within youth care (Verzaal, 2002). The increasing use of programs as Families First Home-Start, Family Centred Therapy, wraparound care, and parent support programs, can be seen as the consequences of adopting a strength-based approach to care instead of a deficit-based approach (Slot & Spanjaard, 2009), a tendency which is also prevalent in other countries (Powell, Batsche, Ferro, Fox, & Dunlap, 1997; Lietz, 2011). This approach is based upon the assumption that clients who come for help already have various competencies and resources that may be accessed to improve their situation. Although, in a strict sense, children and adolescents (hereafter referred to as youth) are the clients of youth care, parents are involved mostly as mediators in helping to achieve beneficial change. An important prerequisite for this role is that professionals know parents are knowledgeable and competent with regard to the needs of their child/children (Minjarez, Mercier, Williams, & Hardan, 2013; Singh et al., 1995), and that parents become partners in shared decision making to determine the best support for themselves and their child (Kutach et al., 2011). In line with Zimmerman (2000), we see this as a parental empowerment process in which parents are stimulated to strengthen their parenting competencies to such an extent they can address and solve parenting problems independently of youth care and make the right decisions regarding parenting issues. For the purposes of assessment and evaluation, it is very important to measure the outcomes of this process. Our empowerment questionnaire is meant to do this.
In our study, we examined the construct validity and reliability of the Empowerment questionnaire (EMPO). The EMPO focuses on measuring parental empowerment in raising their children and consists of 12 items. The three components of psychological empowerment (intrapersonal, interactional, and behavioral) form the rationale for the EMPO. We used non-clinical (n=673) and clinical (N=1,212) data. To determine construct validity we tested the factorial structure, measurement invariance, correlations with other instruments (PSQ-S and SDQ), and empowerment differences between the two groups. Reliability was determined by testing the internal consistency and test-retest reliability. The results show that the factorial validity of the EMPO was sufficient to good, the EMPO was measurement invariant for various subgroups, and the EMPO scales were negatively correlated with parenting stress (PSQ-S) and child behavioral problems scales (SDQ). Furthermore, the clinical group was less empowered, and the correlation between parental empowerment and child behavioral problems was stronger in this group. In addition, both groups of parents had relatively high scores on the interactional component. In the clinical group, however, parental scores on the interactional component were less correlated with scores on the intrapersonal and behavioral components. Finally, reliability analyses showed a largely sufficient to good internal consistency and test-retest reliability.
Participation of children and families in child welfare interventions , Other topics
