Filmando Interacciones para Nutrir el Desarrollo: A Randomized Pilot Study with Mexican American Fathers

• In Event: Using RCTs to Evaluate Effectiveness of Strengths-Based, Parent-Focused Interventions Promoting Positive Outcomes in Latino Children

Abstract

Traditional fathering programs have missed an opportunity to reflect the unique family patterns and service needs of Hispanic fathers (Karberg et al., 2017; Scott et al., 2015). In addition, family engagement strategies have typically focused on mothers. The aim of this study was to test the feasibility and preliminary efficacy of a 6-week program, Filmando Interacciones para Nutrir el Desarrollo (FINDFM; Filming Interactions to Nurture Development) with Mexican American fathers and their young children. The FINDFM program was delivered through home visits and used video to reinforce naturally occurring supportive father-child interactions. FINDFM also attended to cultural patterns and beliefs that may influence father-child interactions in Mexican origin families. We hypothesized that participation in FINDFM would result in increases in fathers’ responsiveness, encouragement, involvement, and fathering identity; decreases in fathers’ parenting stress; and decreases in children’s behavior problems. We also hypothesized that improvements in fathers’ parenting would be related to improvements in father and child outcomes.
Methods. To participate, fathers had to identify as Hispanic or Latino, live with a child 6 months to 3 years of age, speak English or Spanish, and be enrolled in early childhood home visiting services at a partner community organization. Participating fathers were randomly assigned to FINDFM or a waitlist control group. Forty-nine fathers agreed to participate. Of those, 38 completed pretest and were randomly assigned to conditions. FINDFM home visitors received systematic training and consultation to ensure that they were supported in implementing the model with fidelity. To address our research aims, we conducted one-way analyses of covariance that controlled for baseline measures of outcomes and performed a series of standard linear regressions. Because of the small sample size, we relied on effect sizes (d) to detect meaningful differences between conditions (Cohen, 1988).
Results. All fathers were first generation immigrants who spoke Spanish as their primary home language. All but one of the fathers was born in Mexico (the other was born in Ecuador). See Table 1 for additional descriptive statistics and tests of equivalence of baseline measures. Analyses of data supported some, but not all of our hypotheses. Fathers who received FINDFM had higher levels of encouragement (d = .67), lower levels of parenting stress (d = -.21), higher levels of identity dedicated to the fathering role (d = .34), and reported lower levels of children’s behavior problems (d = -.26) at posttest relative to the control group (see Table 2). Further, there was a moderately strong relationship between increases in fathers’ encouragement and decreases in children’s behavior problems (β = -.54), which supports a central pathway in FINDFM’s theory of change. On the other hand, there were no discernable effects on fathers’ responsiveness or involvement. We found that most sessions were implemented with fidelity.
Discussion. FINDFM is one of the only programs tailored for Mexican American fathers that has been evaluated through a randomized controlled trial. Our findings suggest that it may be a promising approach for leveraging existing home visiting services to better meet Mexican American fathers’ needs.

Authors

• Holly S. Schindler, University of Washington
  Presenting Author

• Philip Andrew Fisher, University of Oregon
  Non-Presenting Author

• Cindy Ola Trevino, University of Washington
  Non-Presenting Author

• Cory Campbell, University of Washington
  Non-Presenting Author