Clinical trial NCT05214898: Improving Father-Child and Father-Partner Relationships Among Black and Hispanic Fathers
Official title: Improving Father-Child and Father-Partner Relationships Through the Evaluation of the 24/7 Dads Intervention With Black and Hispanic Fathers
Study type: OBSERVATIONAL
Overall status: ENROLLING_BY_INVITATION
Conditions: Parent-Child Relations
Partner Communication
Parenting
Lead sponsor: University of Southern California
Sponsor class: OTHER
Collaborators: name: The Children's Institute
name: Children's Bureau - Administration for Children and Families
First posted: 2022-01-31
Enrollment: 350
Sex: MALE
Minimum age (years): 18
Maximum age (years): 60
Standard ages: ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: no
Observational model: CASE_ONLY
Time perspective: PROSPECTIVE
Sampling method: NON_PROBABILITY_SAMPLE
Study population: Program eligibility will be open to all low-income fathers age 18 years or older with children under the age of 24 years. The target geographic area will be South LA, particularly the community of Watts, however participants will not be excluded based on geography. South LA is overwhelmingly Latino (68%) and Black (27%). Close to half (48%) of all residents speak Spanish at home. Nearly all residents are very low-income. We expect our participants to reflect the community in these dimensions.

Brief summary: Fathers play a unique role in the lives of children, with high quality interactions found to improve a child's executive functioning and general school achievement. Father involvement also has positive impacts on fathers themselves, with more involved fathers reporting more self-confidence in their parenting, more satisfaction with parenting, demonstration of more maturity, and reports of less psychosocial distress. However, poverty can have a negative association with fathers parenting and child outcomes, though paternal warmth can mediate this relationship. Children's Institute Inc will recruit and implement the 24/7 Dad program which is designed to provide a comprehensive evidenced-based fatherhood program that builds and strengthens father-child relationships. The curriculum for the primary workshops will be the 24/7 Dad curriculum, which addresses both the responsible parenting and healthy relationship areas in this project. A quasi-experimental interrupted time series (ITS) design allows for a continuous sequence of observations on a population, taken repeatedly over time.

Detailed description: Fathers play a unique role in the lives of children, with high quality interactions found to improve a child's executive functioning and general school achievement. Father involvement also has positive impacts on fathers themselves, with more involved fathers reporting more self-confidence in their parenting, more satisfaction with parenting, demonstration of more maturity, and reports of less psychosocial distress. However, poverty can have a negative association with fathers parenting and child outcomes, though paternal warmth can mediate this relationship. Children's Institute Inc will recruit and implement the 24/7 Dad program which is designed to provide a comprehensive evidenced-based fatherhood program that builds and strengthens father-child relationships. The curriculum for the primary workshops will be the 24/7 Dad curriculum, which addresses both the responsible parenting and healthy relationship areas in this project. The study will use a quasi-experimental interrupted time series (ITS) design that allows for a continuous sequence of observations on a population, taken repeatedly over time. Study aims include: (1) Does the 24/7 Dad intervention influence the behaviors of fathers of young children?; (2) Do fathers who participated in the 24/7 Dad intervention and additional post-intervention support (MIRG and/or financial literacy and job support activities) have better outcomes than those who complete 24/7 Dad only?; (3) Does trauma history and/or current mental wellbeing mediate the relationship between the 24/7 Dad intervention and father engagement, father-child relationships, and co-parenting relationships?; and (4) Does perceived discrimination influence successful outcomes of 24/7 Dad intervention participants? To test the hypotheses of Aim 1 and Aim 2, a generalized linear mixed model will be fitted to the outcome variable individually, specified for corresponding distribution. For Aim 3, investigators will use path models, special cases of structural equation modeling (SEM) with observable variables only, to test the multiple hypothesized mediating pathway.

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* Male
* Age 18 years or older
* Have a child under the age of 24 years
* Speak English or Spanish

Exclusion Criteria:

• Unable to speak English or Spanish

Primary outcomes:
measure: Father Engagement with Child
timeFrame: 3 months
Secondary outcomes:
measure: Relationship Conflict
timeFrame: 3 months
measure: Father-Child Relationship
timeFrame: 3 month
measure: Father Relationship with Co-Parent
timeFrame: 3 months
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Los Angeles
country: United States
facility: University of Southern California
state: California
Study officials:
affiliation: University of Southern California
name: Julie A Cederbaum, PhD
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References: