Family Check-Up Online

The goal of this clinical trial is to test the benefits of the Family Check-Up Online Program for parents of middle school students in Arizona. Participants will complete an online pre-survey, gain access to the online parenting program Family Check-Up, and have the option to meet with a coach to discuss the program. The participants will also complete a post-survey 3 months after enrollment.

The lingering impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted families adversely in multiple ways, including economic stressors, mental health-related functioning, and social/familial functioning. Given the scale of the pandemic's impact on families with school-aged children, the implementation of effective family-focused programs 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, represents critical public health goals. Toward this end, this project is designed to further examine the efficacy of a web-based version of the universal Family Check-Up prevention program, which is an empirically-supported, parent-focused program designed to promote resilience and improve family functioning among parents of middle school-aged youth (grades 6-8th). A randomized control trial conducted through the University of Oregon found that parents who completed the Family Check-up Online program (FCO) either with or without supplemental support coaching exhibited significant increases in confidence and effortful control related to implementing skills and strategies that promote positive emotional and behavioral health among teens. This suggests that parents who complete the program feel more empowered to help guide their child's positive decision making and more effectively manage family challenges. This project will examine whether the FCO program produces improvements in positive parenting practices, reductions in parental emotional distress, and reductions in youth emotional/behavioral problems when delivered as a universal prevention program targeting parents of 6-8th grade students attending Title 1 public schools (\>50% students eligible for free/reduced lunch). The investigators will also examine whether the structured parent coaching support component of the program (i.e., Guidance Coaching) helps to improve the program's effectiveness relative to a parent-initiated informational support condition.