Family Foundations for Special Education Trial (SS-SE)

The Pennsylvania State University (PENNSTATE)

Status: Enrolling

Conditions: Mental Health

Treatments: Behavioral: Family Foundations for Special Education

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT07400497

218-23 (Other Grant/Funding Number)

STUDY00025916

Details and patient eligibility

About

The goal of this clinical trial is to assess the program's impact on parent self-efficacy and co-parental support around (a) accessing health and educational services and (b) parenting for co-parents of children with disabilities entering the Special Education system before their first Individualized Education Program (IEP) meeting. The main questions it aims to answer are: Does the program improve co-parenting support and coordination and parent efficacy in accessing services for and parenting their child? Does the program improve parent mental health, service access, engagement, and adherence? Does the program improve parenting quality? Does the program improve child adjustment (mental and behavioral health, academic engagement)? Researchers will compare pretest and posttest questionnaires from Treatment Group A with Control Group B to see if the program improves parent and child well-being, co-parenting relations, relations with service providers, ability to access services and meaningfully participate in IEP and other meetings.

Participants will:

• Complete pre- and post-test questionnaires
• Treatment Group A will participate in 6 learning sessions, each 1 hour to 1½ hour long, over a 6-8 week period

Enrollment: 120 estimated patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion and exclusion criteria

Inclusion Criteria:

• Parents/parental figures who are over the age of 18, and are involved in childrearing together.
• Coparenting a child being evaluated for special education services
• Has not yet had their first IEP meeting.
• The target child must attend a Philadelphia elementary school (K-8).
• The target child must be the first child in the family to go through the IEP process.
• Co-parents must be fluent in English.

Trial design

Primary purpose: Prevention

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

---

120 participants in 2 patient groups

Group A

Experimental group

Description:

Group A will receive FF-SE in six virtual learning sessions to receive information on the special education system and methods to improve communications and working together as co-parents to enhance their IEP experience. The duration of each session will be between 1 to 1 ½ hour long and will be scheduled weekly according to the participants preferred scheduled. A workbook with supporting documents for each session will be mailed and/or emailed to each participant prior to the start of the sessions.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Family Foundations for Special Education

Group B

No Intervention group

Description:

Group B will have access to existing standard supports available to families entering the special education system.