Stepping Up 4 Your Child (4yourchild)

University of Louisville (UOFL)

Status: Completed

Conditions: Waiting List Control; Parenting Education Curriculum; Parenting Education Curriculum + Case Management

Treatments: Behavioral: 4 Your Child Program

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT02843113

15.1258

Details and patient eligibility

About

Through Stepping Up 4 Your Child, non-custodial fathers will be provided with a comprehensive, solution-oriented program featuring group based parent education and individualized case management to help them achieve financial independence, increase their parenting skills, and develop a co-parenting alliance.

Full description

Fathers' involvement in their children's lives has received increased attention in recent years. In response, support has grown for responsible fatherhood programs aimed at improving the quantity and quality of fathers' involvement. Research on these programs has concluded that factors such as fathers' parenting skills, co-parenting relationship quality, and socioeconomic status all impact fathers' ability to contribute to their children's growth and development. Using this previous research as a foundation, the Stepping Up 4 Your Child project will go beyond traditional fatherhood initiatives by integrating the provision of responsible parenting, economic stability, and relationship education services to fathers at risk for paternal disengagement. To do so, the University of Louisville's Kent School of Social Work will leverage its existing relationship with the Kentucky Office of Child Support Enforcement. Specifically, through Stepping Up 4 Your Child, non-custodial fathers will be provided with a comprehensive, solution-oriented program featuring group based parent education and individualized case management to help them achieve financial independence, increase their parenting skills, and develop a co-parenting alliance. Given that each of these focus areas have all been cited as three of the strongest predictors of paternal engagement, Stepping Up 4 Your Child and the results of its evaluation will have significant implications for the families it serves, as well as the practitioners, researchers, and policymakers interested in responsible fatherhood. 1

Enrollment: 1,266 patients

Sex: Male

Ages: 16 to 105 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• non-custodial father AND
• age 16-24 OR
• age 24 up + low income OR
• age 24 up + child support payment delinquent

Exclusion criteria

• female
• custodial father
• male but not a father
• younger than age 16

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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1,266 participants in 3 patient groups

4 Your Child Program

Experimental group

Description:

Program integrates the provision of responsible parenting, economic stability, and relationship education services to fathers at risk for paternal disengagement.

Treatment:

Behavioral: 4 Your Child Program

4 Your Child + Case Management

Experimental group

Description:

Participants assigned to treatment group that includes case management will receive an initial assessment to determine their strengths and needs. The participant will then work collaboratively with their case manager to connect to community resources to meet his needs. To do so, the case manager will meet with the participant using the following schedule: Months 1-2: intervention in the form of weekly face-to-face meeting with a case manager, plus a weekly phone call from a case manager; Months 3-4: intervention in the form of face-to-face meeting every other week, plus a weekly phone call; Months 5-6: intervention in the form of face-to-face meeting once a month, plus a weekly phone call.

Treatment:

Behavioral: 4 Your Child Program

Waiting list control

No Intervention group

Description:

Individuals who are randomly assigned to this condition will receive no treatment for a period of months in parallel with the experimental intervention conditions. Data will be gathered from them, and they will be randomly assigned to a treatment condition when possible.