Recruitment, Retention, and Intervention Outcomes from the Dedicated African American Dad (DAAD) Study.

A significant proportion of African American (AA) fathers live in households apart from their young children. This living arrangement can have detrimental effects for children, families, and fathers. One hundred seventy-eight (n = 178) AA fathers, not residing with their 2-6-year-old children, were enrolled in a randomized trial to test the Building Bridges to Fatherhood (BBTF) program against a financial literacy comparison condition. BBTF is an intervention that was developed collaboratively with a fathers advisory council of AA fathers who oversaw all aspects of program development. Based upon advisory council feedback, short video scenes captured fathers interacting with their children, their childrens mothers, and other fathers. These video scenes were used to jump start the discussion around fatherhood, parenting, communication, and problem solving during the intervention group meetings. The actors in the video scenes were recruited from the community. Two trained group leaders, using a standardized group leader manual, delivered the intervention. The Money Smart Financial Literacy Program (MSFLP), which served as the comparator, was also delivered by AA men. Program satisfaction was high in both conditions. Even so recruitment and retention challenges influenced the ability to detect father and child outcomes. This study informs the participation of vulnerable urban AA fathers in community-based fatherhood intervention research and provides insight into bolstering engagement in studies focused on this population

Families in transition (FIT) study protocol: feasibility, acceptability and preliminary effects of a group-based parent training in parents of youth in psychiatric residential treatment

Introduction Although adolescents make treatment gains in psychiatric residential treatment (RT), they experience significant difficulty adapting to the community and often do not sustain treatment gains long term. Their parents are often not provided with the necessary support or behaviour management skillset to bridge the gap between RT and home. Parent training, a gold standard behaviour management strategy, may be beneficial for parents of these youth and web-based parent training programmes may engage this difficult-to-reach population. This study focuses on a hybrid parent training programme that combines Parenting Wisely (PW), a web-based parent training with facilitated discussion groups (Parenting Wisely for Residential Treatment (PWRT)). This study aims to: (1) establish the feasibility and acceptability of PWRT, (2) evaluate whether PWRT engages target mechanisms (parental self-efficacy, parenting behaviours, social support, family function) and (3) determine the effects of PWRT on adolescent outcomes (internalising and externalising behaviours, placement restrictiveness).Methods and analysis In this randomised control trial, parents (n=60) will be randomly assigned to PWRT or treatment as usual. Each week for 6 weeks, parents in the PWRT condition will complete two PW modules (20 min each) and attend one discussion group via Zoom (90 min). Adolescents (n=60) will not receive intervention; however, we will evaluate the feasibility of adolescent data collection for future studies. Data from parents and adolescents will be collected at baseline, post intervention (6 weeks post baseline) and 6 months post baseline to allow for a robust understanding of the longer-term effects of PWRT on treatment gain maintenance.Ethics and dissemination The study has been approved by The Ohio State University Institutional Review Board (protocol number 2022B0315). The outcomes of the study will be shared through presentations at both local and national conferences, publications in peer-reviewed journals and disseminated to the families and organisations that helped to facilitate the project.Trial registration number NCT05764369 (V.1, December 2022)

Implementation of a Parent Training Program During Community-Based Dissemination (From In-Person to Hybrid): Mixed Methods Evaluation

Background: Parent training interventions support and strengthen parenting practices and parent-child relationships and improve child behavior. Between March 2018 and February 2020, a community-based parenting program conducted 38 in-person Chicago Parent Program (CPP) groups. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we modified the delivery of the in-person CPP to hybrid delivery using the self-administered, web-based version of the CPP (ezParent) paired with web-based, video conferenced group sessions. Objective: This study aims to describe the delivery transition and implementation outcomes of the hybrid delivery of the CPP (ezParent + group) during community-based dissemination. Methods: This single-group, mixed methods retrospective evaluation examined the implementation outcomes using the RE-AIM (Reach, Efficacy, Adoption, Implementation, and Maintenance) framework. We report on data from hybrid ezParent delivery between September 2020 and August 2022. Parents completed pre- and post program surveys that included motivation to participate and perceived changes in parent-child behavior. Digital analytics captured ezParent completion. Facilitators completed fidelity assessments and participated in postintervention interviews. Results: In total, 24 hybrid ezParent groups (n=240 parents) were delivered by 13 CPP-trained facilitators. Parents reported high levels of satisfaction with the program and improvements in their feelings of parenting self-efficacy and their child’s behavior following their participation in hybrid ezParent. On average, parents completed 4.58 (SD 2.43) 6 ezParent modules. The average group attendance across the 4 sessions was 71.2%. Facilitators found the hybrid delivery easy to implement and reported high parent engagement and understanding of CPP strategies. Conclusions: Using the hybrid ezParent intervention is a feasible and effective way to engage parents. Lessons learned included the importance of academic and community-based organization partnerships for delivering and evaluating robust programs. Implementation facilitators and barriers and future research recommendations are discussed