Immigrant parents facing socioeconomic disadvantages confront structural risks, including language barriers and exposure to criminogenic environments, which adversely impact their parenting and, consequently, their children. In response, social workers in Sweden devised the Self-Assured Parents (SAP) parenting support program, aiming to enhance parenting skills and individual- and family-level protective factors, such as parent-child communication. Over a 1.5-year period, the program was implemented in seven Swedish municipalities with immigrant mothers from Africa and the Middle East.

An evaluation of SAP's effectiveness utilized a Single-Group Case Series Design with three phases—pre-intervention, intervention, and post-intervention. Out of N = 48 mothers who agreed to participate in the evaluation, n = 22 mothers, majority from Somalia, completed all three phases of evaluation. Additionally, individual interviews were conducted with n = 18 mothers up to three months post-program participation. The application of Jacobson's reliable change index and individual case data examination revealed a directional change in only a minority of mothers, suggesting limited immediate effectiveness of SAP. Conversely, interview data indicated overall parental satisfaction with the program's content, reporting acquired skills for emotional and behavioral regulation, as well as feelings of empowered parenting and citizenship. Despite the poor immediate effects, we propose the possibility of "sleeper effects" emerging at later stages post-program participation.