Developing Resilience Skills and Social Competence in Youth in a School Setting

Our study aimed to answer the question: Can a resilience-based intervention improve the psychosocial and educational outcomes of students with psychosocial difficulties? We examined the effectiveness of a resilience-based group intervention, the Resilience Builder Program® (RBP), with students in low-SES school settings to determine if this treatment improves psychosocial and educational outcomes.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Psychosocial Functioning
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Resilience Builder Program

Detailed Description

Enhancing resilience is valuable to youth from economically marginalized communities given that they often face greater challenges and hardships than their peers from more affluent communities.

Efforts to increase resilience skills in these youth are hampered because they disproportionately encounter barriers in access to mental health interventions. Implementing school-based services may be optimal to address these inequalities. This project explores the effectiveness of a school-based group intervention (the Resilience Builder Program®) related to resilience and academic functioning in a sample of children from economically marginalized communities. Students (N = 169) with social-emotional difficulties were recruited from five elementary schools and randomly assigned to participate in the Resilience Builder Program® (RBP) immediately or following a semester delay. Participants, their parents, and teachers completed measures of resilience and academic functioning. Repeated-measures analysis of variance compares groups across time (pre-, post-intervention) on psychosocial and academic outcomes.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 169
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United States
  • Maryland
    • Rockville, Maryland, United States, 20850
      • Montgomery County Public Schools

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: Child
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• psychosocial deficits

Exclusion Criteria:

• psychosis
• extreme aggression
• autism

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Treatment
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Single Group Assignment
• Masking: Single

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Treatment; Received the Resilience Builder Program intervention	Behavioral: Resilience Builder Program; The Resilience Builder Program® group therapy will meet for one class period once a week during the semester (12 sessions). The group aims to improve resilience skills: areas such as the ability to control emotions and behavior, social skills and interactions with peers, problem-solving skills, ability to be flexible in different situations, self-esteem, and optimistic thinking. The groups involve the group leader presenting a new topic and skill, the students discussing this topic and developing strategies associated with the skill, the students practicing the skill while getting feedback from the group leader, and a period focused on self-control strategies. A letter reviewing each session will be sent home to the parent/guardian each week. Also, each child will be asked to do an assignment between weekly sessions to help him/her practice new skills.
No Intervention: Control; Did not receive the Resilience Builder Program

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Resiliency scales for children and adolescent (RSCA)	self-report of child's resilience; score 0-100; higher scores = stronger resilience	1 month

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Behavior assessment system for children, 2nd edition (BASC)	parent, child, and teacher report across varied psychosocial subscales; score 0-100; scores vary based on subscale, higher scores can indicate greater impairment or better functioning	1 month

Other Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Academic competence evaluation scales (ACES)	teacher report of student's academic engagement and motivation; score 0-100; higher scores = better functioning	1 month

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: The Catholic University of America

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): June 16, 2016
• Primary Completion (Actual): March 13, 2020
• Study Completion (Actual): March 13, 2020

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: August 24, 2024
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: August 27, 2024
• First Posted (Actual): August 29, 2024

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): August 29, 2024
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: August 27, 2024
• Last Verified: August 1, 2024

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: resilience
• Other Study ID Numbers: 16-057

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: NO
• IPD Plan Description: No plans to share with other researchers

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No