The Unique and Combined Effects of Prenatal and Early Childhood Programming on Child Maltreatment: Examining Mechanisms of Change

Summary

Child maltreatment and child exposure to adult intimate partner violence (IPV) often co-occur and are detrimental to the mental and physical health of children, yet few prevention programs address these intersecting forms of adversity using dual-generation approaches. The proposed study is a rigorous randomized controlled trial that uses a 2x2 factorial design to evaluate the potential synergistic benefits of delivering programming prenatally and during early childhood in order to support the mother-child relationship and ultimately prevent child maltreatment. If effective in preventing child maltreatment, these programs have the potential for high public health impact given that they are both cost-effective and readily scalable.

Conditions

• Child Abuse
• Intimate Partner Violence
• Secondary Prevention
• Parenting

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Pregnant Moms' Empowerment Program

Women who receive the PMEP complete a structured set of sessions delivered over the course of 5 weeks, each session lasts 2 hours in duration: (1) becoming a group \& safety planning, (2) identifying and understanding sources of stress, (3) strategies to build resilience and resolve conflict, (4) perinatal health and infant care, and (5) positive parenting.

BEHAVIORAL

Reminiscing and Emotion Training

Each of the 5 RET sessions are 1 hour in duration. The program is manualized and each session includes teaching/review of skills, instructions/activity with rationale, reminiscing practice, and immediate video feedback by a family coach.

BEHAVIORAL

Pregnancy - Active Control

Women who are not randomized to the PMEP participate in a contact-equivalent, nondirective social support group.

BEHAVIORAL

Enhanced Case Management

Families randomized to this attentional control condition will receive enhanced case management. They will be mailed a kit containing 5 packets to be opened weekly. Each packet includes a family activity and a newsletter with parenting materials (e.g., Adventures in Parenting curriculum developed by NICHD) that were selected to not overlap with RET content (e.g., reading together, fitness, etc.). Using mothers' responses regarding access to resources on the Family Resource Scale (Dunst \& Leet, 1987), which is completed during the baseline visit, mothers will also receive referrals to community resources for items rated as inadequate.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD)

  collaborator NIH

• University of Notre Dame

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Laura E Miller-Graff, PhD · University of Notre Dame

• Kathryn H Howell, PhD · University of Wisconsin, Madison

• Kristin Valentino, PhD · University of Notre Dame

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

PREVENTION

Masking

DOUBLE

Model

FACTORIAL

Eligibility

Min Age

3 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2024-11-07

Primary Completion

2029-03-30

Completion

2029-08-31

Countries

• United States

Study Locations