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Developmental cascade effects of a parenting-focused program for divorced families on competence in emerging adulthood.

ABSTRACT: This 15-year longitudinal follow-up of a randomized controlled trial of a parenting-focused preventive intervention for divorced families examined cascade models of program effects on offsprings' competence. It was hypothesized that intervention-induced improvements in parenting would lead to better academic, work, peer, and romantic competence in emerging adulthood through effects on behavior problems and competencies during adolescence. Families (N = 240) participated in the 11-session program or literature control condition when children were ages 9-12. Data were drawn from assessments at pretest, posttest, and follow-ups at 3 and 6 months and 6 and 15 years. Results showed that initial intervention effects of parenting on externalizing problems in adolescence cascaded to work outcomes in adulthood. Parenting effects also directly impacted work success. For work outcomes and peer competence, intervention effects were moderated by initial risk level; the program had greater effects on youths with higher risk at program entry. In addition, intervention effects on parenting led to fewer externalizing problems that in turn cascaded to better academic outcomes, which showed continuity into emerging adulthood. Results highlight the potential for intervention effects of the New Beginnings Program to cascade over time to affect adult competence in multiple domains, particularly for high-risk youths.

SUBMITTER: Wolchik SA

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8055044 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:BackgroundThe Strengthening Families Program (SFP) is an evidence-based parent training and youth life skills and drug prevention program traditionally delivered in group settings. Families attend parent and youth classes conducted by trained facilitators. Recently, a 2-disk home-use DVD series was created with the same SFP skills as the group classes for parents and the youth to watch together at home. Additional lesson material was added that included healthy brain development, school success, anger management, dangers of alcohol and drugs, and mindfulness. The SFP DVD reduces SFP delivery costs for agencies and logistic burdens to families. Creative applications of the DVD include holding SFP DVD family discussion groups of multiple families and using SFP DVD video clips as part of a shorter 10-week group class version for parents and the youth.ObjectiveThis study aimed to examine three different DVD implementation scenarios using a noninferiority trial, contrasting target outcomes with an age-matched sample culled from a national norm database of families who completed a standard SFP 14-week class.MethodsThe partial eta-square was used to compare effect sizes between the different delivery modalities for relevant programmatic outcomes. We adjusted the effect sizes by demographic measures to determine whether there were site-specific features influencing program outcomes.ResultsFor the unadjusted effect size comparisons, 13 of the 15 indicated that the home-use DVD outperformed group norms with an average 0.13 effect size estimate difference across the comparisons (28% improvement in the effect size for DVD condition). Comparisons of the home-use DVD condition with the mixed DVD use conditions showed no discernable pattern where one condition consistently outperformed another. Adjusted effect sizes still reinforced the superiority of the DVD conditions; however, there was some shrinkage in the effect sizes as expected with the inclusion of relevant covariates.ConclusionsThe home-use DVD shows that it is possible to effectively deliver an affordable family-based intervention using alternative technology outside of the traditional group-based class format. In almost all of the comparisons, the DVD conditions outperformed the group norms, underscoring that low-cost DVDs or viewing the videos on the Web may provide a useful surrogate for costly group-based formats. Future studies may want to improve on the quasi-experimental design by examining programmatic differences based on delivery format using a randomized controlled trial, thus strengthening the causal framework regarding program effects. In addition, the assessment protocol relied on retrospective reporting, which, although this can limit response shift bias, does not separate data collection in time as with a true pre- and posttest design.

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Developmental cascade effects of a parenting-focused program for divorced families on competence in emerging adulthood.

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