Session 6

Children, Youth, and Families: Protection, Well-Being, and Development

Moderator: Dr. Meirong Liu (Professor, Director of PhD program, Howard University, USA)

O6.1  From Recovery to Resilience: The Role of Mentorship in Supporting Young Ex-Drug Abusers

*Steven Sek-yum Ngai

¹Department of Social Work, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

Abstract

Background and Purpose: Relapse among young ex-drug abusers is a significant issue in Hong Kong, largely due to a critical gap in aftercare services. Existing programs often cease follow-up after a short period, leaving individuals vulnerable to relapse triggered by life stress, low self-efficacy, and a lack of employment or community support. The “Say No to Drugs” (SNTD) Project was established to fill this gap by leveraging a mentorship model to help young ex-drug abusers rebuild their lives. This research aimed to examine the impact of the SNTD Project’s mentorship model. It investigated how the project’s focus on career development and healthy lifestyle building helped young ex-drug abusers achieve stability and prevent relapse.

Methods: This qualitative study examined the outcomes of the mentorship program using data from two focus groups—one with six mentors and one with six mentees. Researchers performed thematic analysis of the transcripts to identify key themes related to participants’ experiences. The accuracy of the analysis was ensured through cross-checking by the lead investigators.

Results: Qualitative findings from focus groups revealed that the mentorship program was a transformative experience for both groups. At its core, the mentorship was characterized as a mutual journey of growth grounded in empathy and trust, extending beyond the mentor–mentee pair to a supportive ecosystem involving families and social workers. Although both mentors and mentees encountered challenges, such as unexpected emotional demands and personal anxieties, they were able to navigate these through the program’s caring environment and support systems. This resulted in positive outcomes, including personal growth among mentors and tangible life changes among mentees, such as abstaining from drug use and achieving social reintegration. The program’s holistic approach—using creative activities to promote self-discovery and providing support to whole families—was identified as crucial for helping young ex-drug abusers rebuild healthy lifestyles and, in turn, strengthening emotional bonds at multiple levels. Finally, participants offered valuable suggestions for improvement, including introducing more diverse team-based activities and creating a pathway for former mentees to become mentors themselves.

Conclusions and Implications: This study found that the SNTD Project’s mentorship approach has provided valuable support to young ex-drug abusers after treatment. Its strength lay in providing holistic, empathetic, and relationship-based care that benefited both mentees and mentors. The study highlights important implications for policy, practice, and future program development in addiction recovery. It suggests that policymakers and service providers should shift from crisis-focused interventions to relationship-based, community-centered models. The findings also redefine mentorship as collaborative rather than hierarchical, emphasizing the importance of empathy, humility, and mutual growth. In addition, the study points to the value of formalizing pathways for former mentees to become assistant mentors, which could strengthen self-efficacy, support recovery, and create a sustainable cycle of credible peer support.

O6.2  Protective vs. punitive informal social control: A multilevel mediation study of collective efficacy and child sexual abuse in Nepal

*Kewen Wang¹, Xiaoyuan Han², Sirjana Thapa³, Jacky Chi Kit Ng², Clifton R. Emery¹

¹Department of Social Work and Social Administration, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China; ²Department of Applied Social Sciences, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China; ³Namseoul University, South Korea

Abstract

Background and Purpose: While collective efficacy is theorized to promote community intervention against child maltreatment, the mechanisms of informal social control (ISC) through protective versus punitive pathways remain poorly understood. This study aims to examine whether the association between neighborhood collective efficacy and contact child sexual abuse (CSA) is differentially mediated by protective versus punitive forms of ISC against child maltreatment in Nepal.

Methods: We analyzed two-wave nationally representative data from 1,089 mother-adolescent dyads across 100 Nepali wards using a multilevel parallel mediation model in Mplus. We tested relationships between ward-aggregated collective efficacy and protective and punitive ward responses at Wave 1. These mediators, in turn, were used to model children’s past-year contact sexual abuse at Wave 2, adjusting for individual and community covariates.

Results: The model revealed two distinct, opposing pathways. Neighborhood collective efficacy was positively associated with both protective and punitive ISC. Punitive ISC was significantly linked to increased contact CSA risk, whereas protective ISC showed a non-significant negative trend. The indirect effect via punitive ISC was significant, while the pathway via protective ISC was not. The null total effect suggested these opposing indirect paths may have canceled each other out.

Conclusions and Implications: Findings indicate that collective efficacy’s role in CSA prevention is not uniform but depends critically on the type of ISC it fosters. While collective efficacy promotes both protective and punitive responses, only the protective pathway shows potential for reducing risk, whereas the punitive pathway inadvertently appears to heighten CSA risk. The study lends evidence for cultivating protective, supportive community-based child protection interventions instead of punitive control.

O6.3  Educational Assortative Mating and Child Maltreatment: A Moderated Mediation Model of Family Process and Inequitable Gender Norms

*Yishan Jin¹, Chengkun Jin¹

¹Department of Sociology, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China

Abstract

Background and Purpose:: Educational assortative mating constitutes an important dimension of family microstructure that may shape intra-household power relations, parenting resources, and patterns of parent-child interaction. Yet evidence remains limited on whether different educational matching types between spouses are differentially associated with child maltreatment and through which family processes these associations operate. This study aims to investigate the relationships between parental educational matching patterns and child maltreatment, while also examining the mediating roles of coparenting relationship and parental burnout and the moderating role of demographic characteristics.

Methods: Data were drawn from 10,174 participants. Multiple regression analyses were used to estimate the associations between parental educational matching patterns and emotional abuse, emotional neglect, physical abuse, and physical neglect. Mediation analyses assessed the roles of coparenting relationship and parental burnout, and the KHB method was applied to decompose joint indirect effects. Interaction models were used to examine demographic heterogeneity in these associations.

Results: Compared with educational homogamy (i.e., the respondent being equally educated as the spouse), hypogamy (i.e., the respondent being less educated than the spouse) was significantly associated with a higher level of emotional abuse (β = .040, p < .001), whereas hypergamy (i.e., the respondent being more educated than the spouse) was significantly associated with a higher level of emotional neglect (β = .024, p < .05). Regarding mediating mechanisms, hypogamy was negatively associated with coparenting relationship (β = -.056, p < .001), and poorer coparenting relationship was in turn associated with more emotional abuse (β = -.173, p < .001) and emotional neglect (β = -.141, p < .001). Hypergamy was positively associated with parental burnout (β = .019, p < .05), and parental burnout was positively associated with emotional abuse (β = .255, p < .001). However, when both mediators were modeled jointly using the KHB approach, only the indirect effect through coparenting relationship on emotional abuse remained statistically significant. Interaction analyses further showed that maternal status strengthened the positive association between hypergamy and both emotional abuse and physical abuse, whereas urban household registration weakened the association between hypogamy and physical neglect.

Conclusion and Implications: The findings indicate that educational assortative matching is not simply a compositional feature of marriage, but a meaningful dimension of family context associated with distinct forms of child maltreatment. Child maltreatment prevention and family intervention strategies should attend more closely to power asymmetries embedded in marital educational matching, strengthen coparenting processes, alleviate parental burnout, and incorporate maternal-status and urban-rural differences into policy design.

O6.4  Dyadic Associations Between Unsupportive Intergenerational Coparenting and Child Behavior Problems: The Mediating Role of Harsh Discipline

*Jia Chen¹, Yao Fu², Mengtong Chen³

¹Department of Social Work, Shanghai University, Shanghai, China; ²Department of Applied Social Sciences, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China; ³Department of Social Work, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

Abstract

Background and Purpose: Intergenerational coparenting has become increasingly prevalent worldwide due to shifting partnership patterns, rising maternal employment, and increasing family breakdowns. Unsupportive coparenting can have detrimental effects on the well-being across three generations and the whole family functioning. However, studies of its impact on children’s social-emotional development remains limited. This study is aimed to investigate the association between unsupportive intergenerational coparenting (i.e., undermining coparenting and exposure of child to conflict) perceived by both parents and grandparents and child behavior problems. In addition, it examines the mediating effects of harsh (grand)parenting behaviors of the two generations and how these associations vary between different intergenerational coparenting dyads (i.e., parents-own older parents vs parents-spouses’ older parents).

Methods: Data were derived from the survey studies on urban intergenerational coparenting families in Shanghai, Tianjin and Shijiazhuang, China. A convenience sampling approach was applied to recruit target intergenerational coparenting families. Eliminating cases with missing values, we obtained a final working sample of 445 intergenerational coparenting dyads for the analysis. The Actor Partner Interdependence Model (APIM) was applied to investigate the interdependence between parents and grandparents in the context of coparenting. Two sets of path analyses were conducted for the total sample and subsamples of coparenting dyads.

Results: The results show that neither parents’ nor grandparents’ undermining coparenting were significantly associated with child behavior problems. Only parents’ perceived exposure of child to conflict demonstrated direct positive associations with child behavior problems. Significant actor and partner effects emerged only for parents regarding unsupportive intergenerational coparenting relationship. Specifically, parents’ own perceptions as well as coparenting grandparents’ perceptions of unsupportive coparenting relationship would trigger parents’ harsh discipline toward children and in turn elevated child externalizing and internalizing behavior problems. The underlying influential mechanisms differ between families having parents and their own older parents coparenting and their counterparts having parents and their older parents-in-law coparenting.

Conclusions and Implications: In the context of intergenerational coparenting, parents’ and grandparents’ perceptions of the intergenerational coparenting relationship influence each other’s hash parenting behaviors, which in turn contributes to children’s behavior problems. Social work services for children’s behavioral correction need to focus on the childrearing environments, particularly the adverse child developmental outcomes resulting from the complex family dynamics between the two generations of joint child caregivers. Furthermore, family support services should also aim to alleviate unsupportive coparenting relationships and distinguish the potential family challenges posed by different types of intergenerational coparenting dyads.

O6.5  Evidence-Based Parenting Program for Preventing Child Maltreatment in Rural China: From Pilot to Scale-Up

*Huiping Zhang¹, Weiwei Wang¹, Xuefei Wang¹

¹Department of Social Work, Renmin University of China, Beijing, China

Abstract

Background and Purposes: Child maltreatment is a global public health concern and a major barrier to the sustainable development of human capital in rural China. Meanwhile, China's basic public service system for parenting programs in rural areas faces institutional and resource constraints, which substantially limit the timely delivery of child protection services to rural children. This study aims to examine the prevalence and consequences of early childhood maltreatment in rural China and to evaluate the implementation effectiveness of the internationally evidence-based Parenting for Lifelong Health program after cultural adaptation for rural settings.

Methods: Both quantitative and qualitative methods were employed to collect longitudinal survey data of 2824 participating families in Hebei, Guizhou, and Xizang and semi-structured interviews of facilitators and barriers of parenting program in Hunan. Pre–post assessments in pilot study and three rounds of randomized controlled trials in evaluation studies were conducted to examine the effectiveness of the culturally adapted parenting program.

Results: Mild forms of child maltreatment were common in rural China. Emotional violence and neglect were associated with greater negative impacts on children's mental health and behavioral problems at one-year follow-up. Compared with the control group, parents participating in the online parenting program reported significantly reduced child maltreatment and improved positive parenting practices, and children's behavior problems showed improvements at the three-month follow-up. However, parents' mental health did not change significantly. Furthermore, the long-term effects of the program varied depending on the delivery format as well as parents' educational level and migration status.

Conclusions and Implications: Digital parenting programs can benefit rural Chinese families with young children and represent a low-cost and scalable approach for the prevention of child maltreatment.

O6.6  Non-contact Sexual Abuse of Minors: The Evolution and Governance Mechanisms

*Chaoran Jin*

¹Capital Normal University, Beijing, China

Abstract

Non-contact online sexual abuse (OSA) facilitates behavioral control over victims through digital spaces, resulting in profound physical and psychological consequences among victims. Utilizing an emotional lens informed by interviews with both victim and perpetrator cohorts, this study aims to explore the mechanisms underlying emotional manipulation in OSA. The study has identified three foundational stages of the abuse process: risk accumulation, relationship construction, and abuse perpetration. During these developmental phases, both victims and perpetrators accumulate risks across individual, familial, and environmental domains. Perpetrators identify these risks, manipulating victims into emotional dependency by delivering specifically desired responses. This evolves into an abuse–compensation cycle that effectively prevents victims from extricating themselves. These findings suggest that protection and assistance services should prioritize reconstructing emotional cognition, restoring familial stability, developing robust support networks, and implementing measures to purify the digital environment.