Mitigating the Impact of COVID-19 in Vulnerable Families: A Community-Based Family Check-up Model Intervention.

• In Event: Vulnerable Children and Families in COVID-19: Risks and Resilience

Abstract

Objective:
The impact of COVID-19 on marginalized families and communities of color goes beyond the virus itself. The cumulative impact of COVID-19 on an asymmetrical and inequitable social infrastructure is that the most vulnerable families will be hit earliest, hardest, and have the most difficult time recovering from this public health crisis. The ripple effect of economic, education, health and mental health care, and social support challenges arising from the pandemic has put vulnerable families under even greater strain, impacting both family functioning and child development. In this study, we evaluated the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on families during a randomized controlled trial of a community-based adaptation of the Family Check-Up Model (FCM) (Dishion et al., 2008) targeting low-income families with children from 0-5 years of age.
Method:
The sample consists of n=984 (512 FCM intervention, 472 control). Our sample is predominantly African American (47%), Middle Eastern / North African (25%), and Caucasian non-Hispanic (22%). The sample is 97% mothers (avg. age = 32yrs), and target children were 50% female (avg. age = 2.2 years). Families were assessed at baseline, 6-months, and 12-months. Measures included Child Care, Parenting Skills, Children’s Education, Health Care, and Family/Social Relationship Risk subscales of the Arizona Self-Sufficiency Matrix (ASSM). Data for the present analyses were collected from 10/19 to 07/20, which spanned across the start of the COVID-19 lockdown, allowing us to make comparisons of effects of the FCM before and after the crisis started.
Results:
Using multinomial longitudinal multilevel models with assessment period nested within family and families nested within COVID-19 periods (period 1 = assessments prior to 3/14/2020; period 2 = at least one post-baseline assessment after 3/14/2020). Treatment group status was included as a family level predictor. Results of these analyses indicate that pre-COVID-19, the enhanced FCM significantly reduced the risk levels on the ASSM compared to the control group. There was a significant negative COVID-19 effect leading to increased risk in areas of health care, family and social connections, and parenting challenges independent of treatment group status. However, the effect was significantly attenuated for families in the FCM group indicating that the FCM buffered families from the full negative effects of COVID-19.
Conclusions
The findings indicate that the enhanced version of the FCM offers an effective and scalable prevention intervention with the capacity to have a positive impact on families across multiple domains of family functioning. This is consistent with the need to view families holistically and provide strengths-based interventions that have community impact and are resource efficient. This is especially true when the overall social infrastructure is under duress as is the case during the COVID-19 pandemic and with potentially similar societal challenges stemming from climate change and future public health crises.

Authors

• Robert Ty Partridge, Wayne State University
  Presenting Author

• Christopher Joseph Trentacosta, Wayne State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jeff Miles, United Way for Southeastern Michigan
  Non-Presenting Author

• Randi Burlew, Phlliber Research and Evaluation
  Non-Presenting Author

• Alice Audie-Figueroa, United Way for Southeastern Michigan
  Non-Presenting Author

• Melanie Gill, United Way for Southeastern Michigan
  Non-Presenting Author

• Maya Satterwhite, United Way for Southeastern Michigan
  Non-Presenting Author