...the goal of parenting programs is to help incarcerated parents acquire skills to increase efficacy of parenting, increase parental confidence and satisfaction, and reduce stress associated with parenting during incarceration. these programs teach parents about child development techniques for managing child behavior. parents are assisted with strategies to communicate effectively with their children given the unique circumstances. visitation is an important component of the program, which can include didactic instruction (learning through experience/teaching) while supervised by a program instructor. programs vary in length; they typically last two to three months. this meta-analysis includes studies of parenting programs for incarcerated mothers and fathers. the interventions include filial therapy—family-focused play therapy—and systematic training for effective parenting (step). studies in this meta-analysis did not report recidivism as an outcome measure; however, they did report a variety of parenting measures, including parental stress, satisfaction, empathy, acceptance, and locus of control. we combined all of these measures into a broad “parenting success” outcome for each study. a positive effect size indicates improvement in one or more of these parenting measures, on average. ...