Responsible Fatherhood Opportunities for Reentry & Mobility
Phase: NA
Conditions: Healthy
Sponsor: Mountain Comprehensive Care Center

Document Cover Page 
Official Title of the Study: 
Responsible Fatherhood Opportunities for Reentry & Mobility (ReFORM) 
NCT Number: NCT02860988 
Date of Document: September 29, 2020 
 
 
 

  
Responsible Fatherhood Opportunities for Reentry & Mobility (ReFORM) 
Protocol 
 
Background 
Mountain Comprehensive Care Center (MCCC) in Prestonsburg, KY was recently 
awarded a grant from the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) as part of the 
Responsible Fatherhood Opportunities for Reentry and Mobility (ReFORM) Program to 
strengthen positive father-child engagement, improve employment and economic mobility 
opportunities, improve healthy relationships and marriage, and decrease barriers to 
successful community reentry. MCCC has a physical presence in Floyd, Johnson, 
Lawrence, Magoffin, Martin and Pike in eastern Kentucky and established relationships 
with the two targeted detention centers for pre-release services (Floyd County Detention 
Center and Big Sandy Regional Detention Center). 
 
To address barriers to service participation, grant funding will be used to provide 
evidence-based services to strengthen parenting skills for fathers who are incarcerated 
and planning for community re-entry, along with interventions to increase economic 
mobility and relationships. Individualized, culturally- /gender- competent and 
comprehensive case management and wraparound services will also foster program 
participation and success. The project will offer integrated services for fathers who are 
incarcerated in the targeted area who are incarcerated in Floyd County or Big Sandy 
facilities. Responsible parenting activities will include skills-based parenting education, 
dissemination of information regarding good parenting practices, one-on-one counseling 
regarding parenting issues, and will encourage and seek to facilitate the financial support 
of participants’ children. Economic stability activities will include job readiness workshops, 
and upon release, linkages with additional job training and educational assistance, job 
search and placement assistance as well as employment incentives at 30 days of 
employment. Finally, healthy marriage/relationship activities will include marriage and 
relationship education, conflict resolution skills training, financial literacy seminars and 
counseling. Semi-annual parent/child events and annual relationship events will also be 
available to foster stronger family connections. 
 
Objectives 
The ACF award to MCCC primarily supports service enhancement and service delivery. 
To ensure the effectiveness of the proposed services, MCCC will be contracting with 
University of Kentucky to perform the evaluation. The evaluation includes two primary 
components:  
1) consultation on the collection of ACF required Performance Measures to 
document program client characteristics, program operations, enrollment and 
participation, and pre-test/post-test outcome measures; and  
2) responsibility for the local evaluation which includes a quasi-experimental 
two group design to examine the effectiveness of targeted services for fathers 
at MCCC  
 
 

 
Study Design 
The local evaluation will utilize a quasi-experimental research design including an 
experimental group (receives MCCC targeted services under the newly funded ACF 
grant) and a comparison group (incarcerated fathers who do not receive targeted services 
in a comparable local regional jail). The Kentucky River Regional Jail (KRRJ) is selected 
as the site for comparison group recruitment because it does not fall in the Mountain 
Comprehensive Care designated service region, and individuals residing in the KRRJ are 
comparable in demographics and other key variables of interest. 
 
In the proposed evaluation, eligibility criteria used to select participants for the targeted 
MCCC grant-funded services in the Floyd County Detention Center and the Big Sandy 
Regional Detention Center will also be implemented in a comparison jail site. The 
Kentucky River Regional Jail (KRRJ) located in Hazard, Kentucky is not in the targeted 
service area for this MCCC project. KRRJ is comparable in size, characteristics of the 
offender population, and geographic location to the targeted facilities in Floyd County and 
Big Sandy. Following standardized screening based on grant eligibility criteria, the only 
anticipated difference between the experimental condition and the comparison condition 
is the opportunity to receive targeted services based on jail.  
 
Following targeted screening, participants in the experimental (n=250) and comparison 
groups (n=250) will participate in baseline interviews focused on fatherhood, family 
relationships, and economic stability indicators, as well as factors which might impact 
these key outcomes including substance abuse and mental health. All participants in the 
local evaluation will also complete the post-test assessment at the conclusion of the 
courses (experimental group) or at a comparable time frame of 12 weeks for the 
comparison group. All evaluation participants will also be followed 6 months post-
release from jail to complete an additional post-test assessment for the targeted 
instruments. 
 
Study Population 
The MCCC estimates that during the first year a minimum of 50 participants will be served 
accounting for up to a 9-month planning period. It is estimated that 150 participants will 
be served annually in years 2-5, with a final total of 650 participants over 5 years. Of these 
participating individuals, 250 will be randomly selected (50 each year of the 5 year project) 
to be involved in the local evaluation. In addition, 250 comparison group participants will 
be recruited from a non-treatment site (jail). The 500 total participants recruited for the 
local evaluation will be incarcerated fathers. Participants for the local evaluation will be 
identified as eligible fathers who have been tried and convicted as an adult; within 3 to 9 
months of release; are low-income; and may be an expectant father, a biological father, 
an adoptive father or a stepfather or who a person who is acknowledged as a father figure 
(e.g., grandfather) of a dependent child or young adult child up to 24 years of age, and 
interested in participation. The target population does not exclude individuals from 
participants because of age, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, culture, literacy, disability, 
or language. 
 

Based on data from the two targeted detention centers, 80% of all inmates are male and 
approximately 94% are parents. It is also anticipated that offenders will share similar 
characteristics to the targeted area including race (primarily White), chronic poverty, low 
educational attainment, high unemployment as well as 90% who have been arrested on 
alcohol or drug-related charges leading to family instability and separation. This 
population frequently faces not only the challenge of offender status but also substance 
use when trying to secure employment. Once enrolled in the evaluation, all participating 
clients will have access to the targeted ReFORM interventions. The local evaluation will 
enable analysis to focus on the unique contribution of enhancing parenting and 
relationship skills as well as job readiness and other employment and economic skills. 
 
Subject Recruitment Methods and Privacy 
Recruitment efforts will target two groups of incarcerated fathers:  
1) those who receive MCCC grant funded services (Floyd County 
Detention Center; Big Sandy Regional Jail, n=250); and 
 2) those who are incarcerated in jails not in the service delivery region for 
grant funded services (Kentucky River Regional Jail, n=250).  
 
Participants in the treatment group will be informed about the local evaluation at treatment 
intake, and will be provided with an overview of the evaluation. If MCCC treatment 
participants are willing to be in the sampling frame for the local evaluation, they will sign 
the release of information form with the MCCC treatment coordinator. For the comparison 
group, the UK Program Coordinator will recruit participants from KRRJ once a month 
based on a randomized schedule. On each recruitment day, UK research staff will 
randomly select male offenders serving time in the jail from the daily census sheet to 
participate in the screening sessions. Jail personnel are not engaged in the research and 
not involved in the random selection of cases, and they will only providing access to the 
daily census sheet. UK research staff will randomly select 10-15 male participants 
residing in the jail on the day of screening. All male inmates will have an equal opportunity 
of being selected for the local evaluation, including minorities, as long as they are at least 
18 years of age and not previously screened for the study.  
 
Comparison group recruitment criteria will be matched to MCCC treatment participants 
including fathers who have been tried and convicted as an adult; within 3 to 9 months of 
release; are low-income; and may be an expectant father, a biological father, an adoptive 
father or a stepfather or a person who is acknowledged as a father figure (e.g., 
grandfather) of a dependent child or young adult child up to 24 years of age, and 
interested in participation. It is anticipated that approximately 5 comparison group 
participants will be recruited into the study each month in order to maintain a manageable 
number of participants for follow-up interviews. 
 
Advertising 
N/A 
 
 
 

Informed Consent Process 
Names of interested and eligible treatment participants will be shared with the UK 
research staff after they sign a MCCC release of information. No research/evaluation 
activities will be initiated with the treatment participants until they meet with the UK 
research staff and sign informed consent. Comparison group participants who are 
interested in the study will be asked to participate in the screening session at the jail with 
the UK research coordinator. Potential participants in both conditions will be provided with 
informed consent prior to the collection of ANY data.  
 
As part of the informed consent process, potential participants will be assured that:  
(a) Neither participation nor refusal to participate in a protocol will affect their legal 
parole status (if applicable);  
(b) No individual or identifiable data collected as part of a study protocol will be 
made available to any criminal justice authority including jail, parole, or 
community mandated treatment; and  
(c) If potential participants do NOT wish to participate, their parole or other legal 
status will not be affected. Potential participants who choose NOT to participate 
in the study protocol will not be identified in their records, and nonparticipation 
will NOT become a matter of official record in any file.  
 
Informed consent procedures will cover participation in the screener (for the comparison 
group), baseline interview, and follow-up interviews so that participants are fully aware of 
all possible study procedures before making a decision about entering the study. Due to 
the sensitive nature of some of the questions asked in the interviews, confidentiality 
issues will be stressed during informed consent which will include a description of a 
federal Certificate of Confidentiality which provides an additional layer of human subject 
protection. Participants will also be assured that their screening results, study 
participation, and study data will not be made available to any representative of the 
criminal justice system. The research coordinator will keep detailed records on the 
number of interested participants who participate in the screening session and the 
number of refusals. Screening data will be examined as part of the implementation phase 
to examine characteristics of participants who enter the study compared to those who are 
not eligible. Because of the short time frame between baseline and follow-up interviews 
(approximately 12 weeks), consent procedures will not be repeated at each follow-up 
interview since no new procedures will be introduced. However, a follow-up script will be 
reviewed with The participant to remind him of the key elements of informed consent. 
 
Research Procedures 
To fulfill the requirements of the ACF funded grant, agency administrators and treatment 
staff are required to collect standardized performance measures. The evaluation PI will 
be given access to de-identified data through the ACF mandated nFORM data 
management system in order to assist the agency with data analysis for quarterly reports 
on: 
1) program inputs (recruitment, enrollment, and characteristics of the client 
population);  

2) program activities (quality assurance and monitoring, implementation 
challenges, and referrals to community agencies);  
3) program outputs (enrollment, timing of client participation, program 
attendance, and overall program retention); and  
4) program outcomes (changes in parenting behaviors, economic stability, 
relationships, personal development and well-being, and overall perceptions of 
the program). 
 
These data are de-identified and required by the funding agency (ACF) to monitor 
program operations. This IRB application is focused primarily on the local evaluation. 
The nFORM data will only be used for the local evaluation with a signed release from 
the participant. 
 
Potential local evaluation participants receiving targeted services at the Floyd County 
Detention Center or Big Sandy Regional jail will be asked about their interest in the local 
evaluation. If the participant is interested, he will be asked to sign a release of 
information to the evaluation team to access his nFORM information (specifically 
demographics and intake assessments which will be specified on the release). The UK 
research staff will work closely with MCCC project staff to identify individuals interested 
in the local evaluation. 
 
Comparison group screening: Following random selection, the purpose of the screening 
session is to identify rural men who meet similar criteria as individuals receiving targeted 
MCCC services. The screening session (estimated 20 minutes) will be conducted 
between a trained study interviewer and the potential participants either in a face-to-face 
format or in a group setting, depending on the available jail accommodations. The session 
will include informed consent and an emphasis on the voluntary nature of study 
participation. Following consent, participants will be administered the ReFORM screening 
assessment (under development, will be forwarded for IRB approval prior to 
implementation). If the screener is administered in a group format, questions will be read 
aloud to participants and responses will be recorded confidentially on paper copies of the 
screener. Eligible participants will need to meet all of the specified study criteria to be 
invited to do a baseline interview. 
 
Data collection: Potential comparison group participants meeting study eligibility criteria 
will complete a face-to-face baseline interview with the study interviewer the same day of 
the initial screening session, which is expected to last about 1 hour. Treatment group 
participants will also complete the required assessment interviews with the research staff 
after being identified as being interested in the local evaluation. The interviewer will be 
trained in the study protocol, as well as in jail policies and procedures. Interviews will be 
conducted in the jail visiting rooms which are large enough to provide a confidential face-
to-face interview, and have been used to conduct interviews for other studies with 
offenders. While jail staff may monitor participant entry and exit into the visitation room, 
no jail staff will be present for the confidential interviews. 
 

Data collection for the evaluation will include the initial Fatherhood Pre-test for 
Incarcerated Fathers, followed by an interview with the Evaluation Coordinator (in 
person, phone, or Wi-Fi audio) at 12 weeks post-intake (or completion of services), and 
again at 6 months post-release from jail. Participants will receive incentives for their 
time to complete data collection interviews.