KEEP Connecting Kin

Summary

The current study provides a unique opportunity to conduct a summative evaluation of the KEEP Connecting Kin (KEEP-CK) program by leveraging extant relationships with Oregon's Child Welfare System (CWS), Self-Sufficiency Program (SSP), and our community partners to address the needs of informal kinship families and the youth in their care. Specifically, a randomized "services-as-usual" (SAU) waitlist control design plus qualitative methods will be used to evaluate the immediate (post-intervention) and sustained (10 month) impacts of the KEEP-CK program on child, adult, and service utilization outcomes, and prevention of entry into the CWS.

Conditions

• Internalizing Behavior
• Externalizing Behavior
• Child Permanency
• Parenting
• Parent Stress
• Service Utilization

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

KEEP-CK

The KEEP-CK model focuses on optimizing the role of kinship parents as the agents of positive change for children and youth. KEEP-CK groups for kinship parents are delivered by two co-group leaders for 16 weeks. Sessions are 90 minutes each week. The same group of 8-12 kinship parents attends each week. Each KEEP-CK group follows a manualized curriculum that emphasizes tailoring the content to the unique needs and cultures of the parent in the group and the youth in their care. The key parenting principles of the model include: (a) reinforce normative and prosocial behavior, (b) incentivize the behavior that parents want to promote, (c) build cooperation, (d) teach new behaviors, (e) use non-harsh effective limit setting, and (f) manage emotions while parenting. The key services connection elements of the model include: (a) parent discussions of services they are using or have used and (b) KEEP-CK group leaders share examples from a list of statewide and national services.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Office of Planning, Research & Evaluation

  collaborator FED

• Oregon Social Learning Center

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Stacey Tiberio, Ph.D. · Oregon Social Learning Center

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

PREVENTION

Masking

NONE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

4 Years

Max Age

18 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2024-02-13

Primary Completion

2026-06-30

Completion

2026-06-30

Countries

• United States

Study Locations