Promoting family-professional partnership in institutions for children with autism

The present study aims to evaluate the impact of the Family-Professional Partnership Model on parents' perception of being enabled and empowered in the treatment of their autistic children. In the context of treatment for children with autism, the Family-Professional Partnership Model strives to create an egalitarian relationship between parents and mental health professionals and it encourages parents to actively participate in their child's treatment. To evaluate the effectiveness of the Family-Professional Partnership Model at enabling and empowering parents of autistic children at the IME, parents of autistic children (n=18) completed the EPS and the PES. For the purposes of this study, the EPS and the PES were translated into French. Eighteen parent couples of autistic children (ages 4-13 years) receiving treatment at the IME for 1 to 2 years agreed to participate. Participants' responses to the EPS were correlated with their responses to the PES. Parent scores on the EPS significantly correlated with their scores on the PES. Father scores on the two measurements correlated significantly, whereas the correlation between mother scores on these measurements remained insignificant. The findings of this study are limited by the small sample size (n=18) but they suggest that the Family-Professional Partnership Model had a positive impact on parent enablement and empowerment in taking care of their autistic children. Future studies should evaluate enablement and empowerment in a larger sample of subjects. They should also evaluate specific factors in the Family-Professional Partnership that lead to parent empowerment.