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

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.

Study Overview

• Status: Active, not recruiting
• Conditions: Child Abuse
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: ACT Raising Safe Kids

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.

• Study Type: Observational
• Enrollment (Estimated): 500

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United States
  • Georgia
    • Atlanta, Georgia, United States, 30303
      • Georgia State University School of Public Health

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: Adult; Older Adult
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

• Sampling Method: Non-Probability Sample

Study Population

Adult fathers (including male caregivers and guardians) of children ages one through ten years old based in the United States.

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

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

Exclusion Criteria:

-

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Number of groups / cohorts

2

Cohorts and Interventions

Group / Cohort	Intervention / Treatment
Treatment; Those with an exposure.	Behavioral: ACT Raising Safe Kids; American Psychological Association ACT Raising Safe Kids; Other Names: ACT RSK
Control; Those without an exposure.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Corporal punishment	Measured by subscale on the Parent Child Conflict Tactics Scale.	One year post intervention.

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Parenting distress	Measured by the Parenting Stress Index.	One year post intervention.

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Georgia State University
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Dennis E Rdiedy, Phd, Georgia State University School of Public Health

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): March 28, 2022
• Primary Completion (Estimated): April 30, 2026
• Study Completion (Estimated): April 30, 2026

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: October 4, 2023
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: October 4, 2023
• First Posted (Actual): October 10, 2023

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): March 27, 2026
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: March 23, 2026
• Last Verified: January 1, 2026

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Other Study ID Numbers: H22282; R01CE003333-01 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: UNDECIDED

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No
• product manufactured in and exported from the U.S.: No