Training in vigilant care for parents of juvenile offenders: A randomized controlled trial.

Parental Vigilant Care (PVC) is a treatment approach that targets parenting factors associated with reduced risk behavior in adolescents. This study examined an application of PVC for the first time in juvenile offenders, a population that experiences significant barriers to effective treatment. Participants were 264 parents of adolescents (12-18 years old) who were referred to the Israeli Juvenile Probation Service for committing legal offenses. Parents were randomly assigned to receive either group PVC training or treatment as usual, which consisted of adolescent-based treatment with two parent group sessions. Parents completed measures of parental knowledge and anchoring, the main clinical targets of PVC, before and after treatment and at 2-month follow-up. Results showed significantly greater retention in PVC than in treatment as usual (23% vs. 43% dropout). Multilevel models revealed significant differences between treatment arms such that parents in PVC had significantly greater increases in parental knowledge and anchoring following treatment than parents in treatment as usual. The findings suggest that training in PVC may improve parenting factors associated with risk reduction among juvenile offenders and may carry additional benefits in terms of treatment retention. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).