Connect to Baby: A Pilot Study of a Parenting and Coparenting Program for New Parents - Project Abstract The proposed randomized control trial of a technology-enhanced coparenting and parenting intervention, addresses three key weaknesses in existing parenting programs by 1) targeting mothers and fathers, rather than mothers alone; 2) focusing on both the coparenting and parent-infant relationship, not just parent-infant interactions; and 3) using technology to enhance program retention and engagement. Our team leveraged content from two evidence-based interventions in combination with unique technological features to create a novel intervention: Connect to Baby (CTB), a 6-session manualized intervention. Parenting and coparenting quality are selected as targets for their strategic influence on infant and child development: contingent, responsive interactions between parents and infants are associated with better lifelong socioemotional and cognitive outcomes. Similarly, supportive coparenting relationships and coordination are associated with enhanced parent mental health, parenting quality, and children’s socioemotional and cognitive outcomes. A key innovation of CTB lies in the introduction and rehearsal of four interaction skills –– Noticing, Following, Talking, and Encouraging –– to foster serve and return interactions with infants as well as supportive, cooperative coparenting interactions between mothers and fathers. To maximize program reach and sustainability, CTB is designed to be delivered within Early Head Start (EHS), a family-serving agency parents already use and trust. Finally, CTB uses a hybrid in-person and remote delivery modality using both video- enabled tablets and a custom-built application to schedule sessions and share digital content to boost program retention and engagement. Using a randomized controlled trial, the efficacy of CTB delivered as part of EHS (EHS-CTB hybrid) will be compared to EHS with the digital content only (EHS-digital only); both groups will be given access to the customized application and digital content that CTB offers, but only the EHS-CTB hybrid group will receive program sessions with guided practice and feedback on NiFTE skill development. The study will assess program impacts on coparenting communication quality and parenting quality at 3- and 6-months post-random assignment to distinguish immediate from sustained effects of the program. Analyses will include both intent-to-treat (ITT) and treatment-on-the-treated (TOT) analyses to determine the importance of program dosage for program efficacy. CTB will also be assessed with regard to parent mental health (parenting stress and depression) and child socioemotional and language outcomes. If demonstrated to be efficacious, CTB will provide EHS, among the nation’s largest federally-funded early education programs, with a brief, cost-effective, manualized preventive intervention that could be used in conjunction with EHS center and home-visiting services to improve parenting quality and coparenting, engage fathers in programming and caregiving, and, ultimately, enhance child development. This study will also offer some of the first evidence as to the feasibility of retaining fathers in parenting programs at every stage of an intervention.
