Middle School Success Over Stress

Study Summary

It is clear that the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted families adversely in multiple ways, including economic stressors, mental health-related functioning, social/familial functioning, as well as responses to mandated safety measures (e.g. social distancing, stay-at-home orders, mask-wearing). Furthermore, families of school-age children have had to navigate online instruction and home schooling in the context of these difficult circumstances with little preparation for doing so effectively. School districts have varied widely in their ability to support parents during this crisis. These stressors are likely to have disproportionately adverse effects on lower-income and racial/ ethnic minority populations, for whom economic, academic, and family-level challenges were already pronounced. For instance, health effects of COVID-19 have hit African American and Latinx populations with disproportionate severity, including higher rates of hospitalization and death. Given the scale of pandemic impacts for families with school-aged children, the identification of effective family-focused interventions that target core mechanisms of change with a broad range of benefits for parents and youth across diverse populations, and that can be brought to scale rapidly and with fidelity, represent critical public health goals. In this research study the investigators will adapt and test the efficacy of the Family Check-Up Online as a treatment to foster resilient family functioning in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The investigators will test the effects of the adapted FCU Online program on key mechanisms of change that are predicted to directly impact child and family functioning: parenting skills, parental depression, and parent and child self-regulation. The investigators predict that changes in these key targets of the intervention will impact participant's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, including youth depression and behavior problems, the ability to cope with pandemic-focu

Primary Outcome

Parents reported on their depressive symptoms using the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9), a 9-item brief depression screening questionnaire. Parents were asked to indicate the extent to which statements were true of their mood in the past two weeks using a 4-pt scale (not at all, several days, more than half the days, nearly every day). Scores ranged from 0-3. High scores indicate greater depressive symptoms.

Interventions

• BEHAVIORAL Family Check-Up