Calling All Dads! Evaluation of APAs ACT Program: Engaging Fathers to Prevent Adverse Childhood Experiences

NCT ID: NCT06075446

Last Updated: 2025-02-06

Basic Information

• Recruitment Status: ACTIVE_NOT_RECRUITING
• Total Enrollment: 500 participants
• Study Classification: OBSERVATIONAL
• Study Start Date: 2022-03-28
• Study Completion Date: 2025-09-30

Brief Summary

The goal of this observational study is to assess the American Psychological Association's ACT Raising Safe Kids program with male caregivers. The main question[s] it aims to answer are: • Will male caregivers in the ACT Raising Safe Kids program report lower child maltreatment, rates of interpersonal violence, and youth aggression. • Does the ACT RSK program have a positive return on investment and will children and caregivers in the ACT RSK condition have a higher quality adjusted life years. Participants will complete four surveys over time and attend the 9-week ACT Raising Safe Kids program. Researchers will compare survey responses from male caregivers taking the ACT Raising Safe Kids classes to male caregivers not taking ACT Raising Safe Kids classes to see if there are changes in anger regulation, family conflict, parent-child conflict, and relationship satisfaction.

Detailed Description

The overall goal of the proposed 3-year project is to determine the efficacy and cost-benefit of ACT Raising Safe Kids, an evidence-based child maltreatment (CM) prevention program to prevent multiple forms of violence by male caregivers and their children. The program, ACT Raising Safe Kids (ACT), was developed by the American Psychological Association and identified in the Center for Disease Control & Prevention's technical package, Preventing Child Abuse & Neglect, as a promising strategy to prevent child maltreatment. Evidence suggests the ACT program reduces coercive, harsh, and physically aggressive parenting practices; increases positive, nurturing parenting practices; and reduces children's externalizing, aggressive, bullying behavior. While suggesting the efficacy of ACT in reducing child maltreatment, existing program evaluations have been limited by the near complete absence of male caregivers in the evaluations. This is a critical gap as male caregivers are perpetrators in nearly 50% of substantiated child maltreatment cases and are more likely to engage in harsh discipline and corporal punishment that could cause injury. The true innovation of the work lies in examining the potential of ACT to additionally prevent intimate partner violence (IPV) perpetration by male caregivers and subsequent youth violence (YV) by their children. To date, no evaluation of ACT has examined the combined prevention effects on CM, IPV, and YV among men or women.

Conditions

Child Abuse

Study Design

• Observational Model Type: CASE_CONTROL
• Study Time Perspective: PROSPECTIVE

Study Groups

Treatment

Those with an exposure.

ACT Raising Safe Kids

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

American Psychological Association ACT Raising Safe Kids

Control

Those without an exposure.

No interventions assigned to this group

Interventions

ACT Raising Safe Kids

American Psychological Association ACT Raising Safe Kids

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

Other Intervention Names

ACT RSK

Eligibility Criteria

Inclusion Criteria

• Full or partial custody of a child between the ages of one and ten years. Must read English or Spanish.

Exclusion Criteria

-

• Minimum Eligible Age: 18 Years
• Eligible Sex: MALE
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

Sponsors

Georgia State University

OTHER

Sponsor Role: lead

Responsible Party

Dennis Reidy

Associate Professor

Responsibility Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

Principal Investigators

Dennis E Rdiedy, Phd

Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

Georgia State University School of Public Health

Locations

Georgia State University School of Public Health

Atlanta, Georgia, United States

Countries

United States

Other Identifiers

R01CE003333-01

Identifier Type: NIH

Identifier Source: secondary_id

View Link

H22282

Identifier Type: -

Identifier Source: org_study_id