EMBRace With Grandparents

Summary

Research on racial discrimination (RD) continues to show the debilitating toll on mental and physical health for adolescents throughout their developmental trajectory, particularly for Black Americans. While adolescents may employ emotion-focused behaviors (e.g., overeating, etc.) in-the-moment to reduce discriminatory distress, such risk-laden behaviors can result in later disparities in their overall health. While this link has been repeatedly established in the literature, racially-specific protective mechanisms (e.g., racial socialization; RS) have been shown to disrupt the pathway from discrimination to health-related outcomes in adolescents. Although informative, the literature on RS has yet to advance our understanding of ways to improve upon these protective processes in Black families. Thus, the proposed study will further our understanding by aiming to improve RS competency (e.g., skills and efficacy) among African American caregivers and youth (ages 10-14) in Detroit, Michigan through the Engaging, Managing, and Bonding through Race (EMBRace) intervention.

The EMBRace intervention facilitates spaces where Black caregivers strengthen and develop skills to be attentive to their adolescent's racial trauma while also reducing their own stress via racial coping knowledge and RS strategies. Parents and adolescents start each session by engaging in separate therapeutic sessions to process experiences of their Black identity. They will then join together for a family session that focuses on enhancing messages about racial pride, bias preparation, rationales behind promoting distrust, and why not engaging in RS practices may be detrimental to youth. EMBRace sessions will take place at the University of Michigan Detroit Center and community sites, and will be video recorded to improve upon the delivery of therapeutic techniques to the families we serve.

Conditions

• Racial Discrimination
• Depression
• Anxiety
• Stress
• Trauma, Psychological

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

EMBRace Intervention Group

The EMBRace intervention will consist of five weekly sessions (weeks 2 - 6) that will be facilitated by EMBRace-trained therapists. Throughout the 8-week intervention, families will be scheduled for 2-hour blocks with sessions being administered to each parent and adolescent for 90 minutes (individually for 30 minutes, 15-minute break, and 45-minutes session with parent and adolescent together). The sessions will cover research-based types of Racial Socialization, including cultural pride, preparation for bias, and attentiveness and balance towards societal racism. Parents and youth will also learn and practice five literacy skills to process and manage the stress of racial encounters including the ability to recognize racial discrimination, accurately appraise the stress of self and others, reduce one's stress, engage instead of avoid, and finally resolve toward healthy outcomes.

BEHAVIORAL

EMBRace Waitlist Group

The waitlist group will be asked to complete a pretest and posttest while the treatment group goes through the EMBRace intervention. During this time, the waitlist group will not have any additional requirements and will not be given any form of comparative treatments. Upon the completion of the treatment from the intervention group, the waitlist group will be consented for entry into the intervention arm of the study and will follow the procedures for the intervention group above.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• University of Michigan

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Riana E Anderson, PhD · University of Michigan

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

NONE

Model

CROSSOVER

Eligibility

Min Age

10 Years

Max Age

99 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2023-04-03

Primary Completion

2023-05-05

Completion

2023-05-05

Countries

• United States

Study Locations