Stepping Up 4 Your Child (4yourchild)

July 21, 2021 updated by: Armon R. Perry, University of Louisville

Stepping Up 4 Your Child: The Impact of an Educational Program and Social Case Work Involvement on Single Fathers

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.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed 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

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

1266

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • United States
    • Kentucky
      • Elizabethtown, Kentucky, United States, 42701
      • Louisville, Kentucky, United States, 40292
        • University of Louisville
      • Owensboro, Kentucky, United States, 42302
      • Owenton, Kentucky, United States, 40359
      • Paducah, Kentucky, United States, 42003
      • Sandy Hook, Kentucky, United States, 41171

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

16 years to 105 years (ADULT, OLDER_ADULT, CHILD)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Genders Eligible for Study

Male

Description

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

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: TREATMENT
  • Allocation: RANDOMIZED
  • Interventional Model: PARALLEL
  • Masking: NONE

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
EXPERIMENTAL: 4 Your Child Program
Program integrates the provision of responsible parenting, economic stability, and relationship education services to fathers at risk for paternal disengagement.
Behavioral: 4 Your Child Program
Integrates the provision of responsible parenting, economic stability, and relationship education services to fathers at risk for paternal disengagement.
EXPERIMENTAL: 4 Your Child + Case Management
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.
Behavioral: 4 Your Child Program
Integrates the provision of responsible parenting, economic stability, and relationship education services to fathers at risk for paternal disengagement.
NO_INTERVENTION: Waiting list control
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.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Change in Fathering Knowledge and Skills.
Time Frame: immediate after intervention, at 3 months later and at 6 months later
Fathering knowledge and skills will be measured using the 24/7 Dad Fathering Skills Survey (National Fatherhood Initiative, 2010). This survey has 25 items that are multiple choice response questions. This survey comes with the 24/7 Dad curriculum packet. Given that this survey is a measure of fathering knowledge and not a standardized scale, no reliability data are available.
immediate after intervention, at 3 months later and at 6 months later
Change in Fathers' Parenting Behavior.
Time Frame: immediate after intervention, at 3 months later and at 6 months later
Fathers' reported parenting behavior will be measured using the Index of Father Involvement (Hawkins et al., 2002). This measure has 9 factors loaded as subscales designed to tap direct and indirect forms of involvement and a total of 26 items. All items are measured on a 5 point scale ranging from A (excellent) to F (failing). The measure has a reported reliability/internal consistency score of .69
immediate after intervention, at 3 months later and at 6 months later
Change in Child Support Compliance.
Time Frame: immediate after intervention, at 3 months later and at 6 months later
These payment data will be obtained via reports from the Kentucky Office of Child Support Enforcement.
immediate after intervention, at 3 months later and at 6 months later
Change in Co-Parenting Relationship Quality.
Time Frame: immediate after intervention, at 3 months later and at 6 months later
Co-Parenting Relationship Quality. Co-parenting relationship quality will be measured using the Co-parenting Questionnaire (CQ, Margolis, Gordis, & John, 2001). This measure is a 14-item self-report instrument examining: 1) the amount of conflict between parents surrounding parenting issues, 2) cooperation as the extent to which mothers and fathers support, value, and respect each other as parents and the degree to which they ease one another's parenting burden, and 3) triangulation, the extent to which parents distort parent-child boundaries by attempting to form a coalition with the child that undermines or excludes the other parent. The 14 items form a three factor structure and have good internal consistency with alphas for the 3 factors and the total scale ranging from .69 to .87.
immediate after intervention, at 3 months later and at 6 months later

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Change in Conflict Resolution Skills.
Time Frame: immediate after intervention, at 3 months later and at 6 months later
The Stanley-Markman Relationship Dynamics Scale (Renick et al, 1992) will be used to measure conflict resolution skills. This measure has reported Chronbach's alpha levels of .73 and .81 (Stanley et al, 2006) and strong predictive validity for relationship failure.
immediate after intervention, at 3 months later and at 6 months later
Change in Communication Skills.
Time Frame: immediate after intervention, at 3 months later and at 6 months later
Communication skills will be measured through the Communication Patterns Questionnaire to assess communication skills. This measure has strong discriminant validity and Chronbach's alpha levels ranging from .73 to .88 (Noller & White, 1990).
immediate after intervention, at 3 months later and at 6 months later

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

University of Louisville

Collaborators

Kentucky Cabinet for Health & Family Services

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (ACTUAL)

July 1, 2016

Primary Completion (ACTUAL)

December 30, 2020

Study Completion (ACTUAL)

December 30, 2020

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

July 7, 2016

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

July 20, 2016

First Posted (ESTIMATE)

July 25, 2016

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (ACTUAL)

July 28, 2021

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

July 21, 2021

Last Verified

July 1, 2021

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Other Study ID Numbers

  • 15.1258

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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