Randomized Controlled Trial of Prenatal Coparenting Intervention for African American Fragile Families

University Of South Florida, Tampa FL

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Abstract

? DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Strategies for addressing intractable disparities in the early development of African American infants must involve meaningful and sustained father engagement. Poor African American infants born to unmarried uncoupled parents are more likely to have such a presence by fathers if their parents create a positive coparenting alliance early on. No empirically-validated prenatal interventions that successfully encourage unmarried fathers and mothers to intentionally create enduring alliances in their babies' best interest currently exist. This R01 tests through RCT methodology efficacy of a new intervention designed specifically to aid development of positive coparenting alliances between at-risk (unmarried, uncoupled, low income) African American mothers and fathers having a first baby together. A feasibility pilot study Figuring It Out for the Child (FIOC) that enjoined affirmatio and support from key African American stakeholders in St. Petersburg, Florida's health and human service and faith-based communities positions a field-ready to team to meet the considerable challenges of recruitment, retention and successful implementation of the intervention. Seventy-five randomly-assigned control group families will receive county services as-usual for pregnant parents and assistance of the partnering health and human service agencies with referrals to desired services, while 75 experimental group families will receive the same services and aid, plus a 6-session prenatal intervention with a post-natal booster session. The intervention addresses the importance of safe, healthy families for early infant development, the impact a cooperative and sustained coparenting alliance can have in promoting positive infant development, challenges unmarried parents face cultivating a coparenting alliance together when their commitment to one another as romantic or married partners is in doubt, and ways to surmount these obstacles, maintain rapport, and sustain a strong alliance. All 150 participating families, both at intake (prior to the intervention) and the again at 3 and 12 months post-partum, will report beliefs about fatherhood; extent of depressive symptomatology; and quality of the mother-father partnership. State-of-the-field coparenting observations will be conducted at each follow-up, along with measures of parental stress, domestic violence, perceived coparenting support, father engagement, and infant socioemotional adjustment. Analyses will examine impact of the intervention on promoting more supportive, coordinated post-partum coparenting alliances and more positive adult and infant outcomes. Exploratory analyses will examine questions relevant to father associations with child adjustment and whether this coparent intervention can reduce domestic violence.