Raising a child with autism places unusual childcare demands on parents and has been found to be a source of significant parenting stress. Research has shown that the manner in which a parent copes with their child's disability contributes to parent, family, and developmental outcomes. Interventions for children with autism have focused on managing children's autistic symptomatology and other difficult behaviors. More recently, interventions have been designed to educate families about the disability and reduce parenting stress, thereby promoting positive family outcomes. However, there has been limited research that systematically evaluates family-focused interventions specifically designed to augment parents' ability to cope effectively. The current research tested a model of direct and indirect predictors of parenting stress and examined a family-based intervention designed to reduce parenting stress. Archival data from 104 mothers of children with autism were provided by a treatment and research facility that serves children with developmental disabilities and their families. Results indicated that coping behaviors and perceived adequacy of resources, but not program attendance hours, were predictors of parenting stress. Although no moderating effects were found for perceived resources or program attendance when predicting parenting stress, post hoc analyses demonstrated divergent pathways for predicting stress from child characteristics (child domain) and stress from parenting competence (parent domain). While perceived lack of resources emerged as a strong predictor of child domain stress, coping behaviors and program attendance were unrelated to child domain stress. In contrast, perceived resources moderated the relationship between coping and parent domain stress. Specifically, as mothers perceived their resources as more adequate and coping behaviors became more productive, parent domain stress tended to be the lowest, but as coping behaviors became less productive, parent domain stress tended to be higher. However, as mothers perceived their resources as less adequate and coping behaviors became more productive, parent domain stress was higher but as coping behaviors became less productive, perceived resources was not predictive of parent domain stress, indicating a weak, negative relationship. Interventions benefit from these results highlighting the significance of parents' well-being and community resources in the developmental environment of children with autism and their families.