Parenting interventions for incarcerated parents can be significantly different in design, execution, and method of assessment. In order to measure program effectiveness, researchers have typically focused on measuring client self-esteem, parenting attitudes, and institutional adjustment. Broadly, these studies have found that parenting interventions for incarcerated parents may improve parenting attitudes, self-confidence, institutional adjustment and behavior, and child outcomes. Despite the promising outcomes evident with some parenting interventions, there is limited information on best practices for these programs, which are often run by well-intentioned volunteers and are rarely evaluated. Information is limited on how to best modify existing programs to meet the needs of incarcerated clients and about possible interaction effects between an inmate’s particular situation and the most effective training content. The available literature indicates that parenting interventions for incarcerated clients must focus on the dynamics of parenting from prison and should be conducted in conjunction with actual child contact. Parenting interventions should also be tailored according to sentence length, so that short-term inmates can be given instruction on how to maintain a more direct role in decisions regarding their children while long-term inmates can be instructed on how to maintain parent-child bonds in the context of a prison setting. Despite the promise shown by current parenting interventions for incarcerated parents, it is important to improve the scientific rigor of program assessments. Researchers should also focus on the factors that distinguish parent-child relationships that may benefit from parenting interventions from those that will not benefit. References