Learning to cope with stress is one of the most important tasks of childhood. Middle childhood (ages 6 to 12) is a period when youth develop valuable coping skills. Although school-based child coping programs exist, the programs cannot provide tailored instruction to meet individual needs and are taught in a context removed from many of the stresses that children experience. Parents can help bridge these gaps by learning to guide or scaffold their children's coping development. Few culturally sensitive programs are available for at-risk populations such as low-income Latino families. The current study used a holistic approach to examine the effects of a parenting education program designed to teach low-income Latina mothers how to help their children cope with stress and to identify program improvements to guide future program implementation. Seventeen mothers with children between the ages of 9 to 12 years old participated in a 7-week long pilot program. The results revealed that mothers were engaged, mothers utilized the program strategies, and mothers reported that their children were noticing changes in their behavior. Quantitative analyses showed that after participation in the program, mothers increased their use of positive scaffolding behaviors, decreased negative scaffolding behaviors, increased emotion coaching behaviors, and increased in some coping knowledge. Surprisingly, the program increased emotion dismissing behavior and maternal inconsistency significantly, whereas maternal nurturance and organization showed no significant differences. Results of the qualitative and quantitative analyses informed 29 recommendations to improve the program for implementation on a larger scale.

Social exclusion and inclusion are concepts that have been researched and debated in European contexts, among middle-class families, and from a quantitative perspective. However, these concepts have not been explored in depth within an American context. The social exclusion debate often centers around its several definitions where no clear consensus has been achieved, which results problematic among researchers. This dissertation had several purposes: 1) To describe how I researched, developed, and delivered a financial intervention literacy program with participating low-income Latina mothers. 2) To provide a critical overview of the social exclusion literature, where a distinction between social exclusion and poverty will be highlighted. In this section, its diverse dimensions (e.g., economic, societal, political, cultural) will be described. 3) To reconceptualize social inclusion, where three concepts will be discussed: a) shifting from social exclusion, a deficit view, to social inclusion, a strength-based perspective, b) shifting from a dichotomy perception (yes/no) to a spectrum perspective (high, middle and low), and c), shifting from a static view (you have it or not) to a fluid one (we can improve it depending on the intervention). 4) Finally, to provide a definition of social inclusion, since a proper one has not been introduced. This dissertation asserts the need to focus on social inclusion, a strength perspective, rather than social exclusion, which stems from a deficit view. The intervention was based on a financial literacy program called Money Smart for Adults and provided the space where eight Latina mothers reflected and acted on their social inclusion challenges. Data collection took take place at a community center located in the Northeast area of the U.S. The delivery of the intervention applied a teaching philosophy composed by negotiation of the curriculum, holistic learning, and critical thinking. Importantly, along with confirming typical dimensions of social inclusion (economic, societal, and political), findings uncovered two new dimensions not found in traditional social exclusion and inclusion literature: language and technological inclusion. Finally, this dissertation study ends with a discussion on implications, future research and practitioner recommendations.

This cross-sectional, comparative, qualitative study explored language-related issues experienced by low-income Spanish-speaking mothers navigating pediatric care for their children in Hillsborough County, Florida. Hospitals, pediatric clinics, specialists, and dental care have differing degrees of linguistic accessibility and accommodations for limited English proficient families. Two groups of mothers were interviewed: bilingual (n=9) and Spanish-speaking limited-English proficient (SSLEP) mothers (n=21). These groups perceived the effect of language on navigating pediatric healthcare differently, creating tension in perceptions and experience between them. Such tensions included SSLEP mothers expressing satisfaction with pediatric care simultaneously with shortcomings in communication. SSLEP mothers said that everything was easy, at the same time stating that navigating healthcare, and other aspects of their family life would be far easier if they spoke English. SSLEP expressions of self-sufficiency were countered by bilingual mothers who provided language support to SSLEP family members, friends, and strangers. This research points toward the need for consistent language services in healthcare settings as well as facilitation of effective English language acquisition opportunities for families.