PODER Familiar: A Health Promotion Intervention for Latino Families of Children With Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities

PODER Familiar will consist of 10 weekly remote one-on-one sessions with the parent and the promotora, and 3 monthly multi-group family sessions to be held in-person. The weekly remote sessions will be conducted on a video-chat platform The multi-group family sessions will be held at a community friendly location (a community center or space at a community organization) in which 3 to 5 families will attend. Family units will consist of the parent and child with IDD and other family members who wish to attend (other parent, siblings, etc.). Group sessions will reinforce content covered in the curriculum through interactive activities and demonstrations.

The promotoras who deliver the weekly sessions will be bilingual and will also be parents of children with IDD. They will offer the sessions in the language of preference of the participant. Promotoras will receive 15 hours of training on content and procedures. Individual sessions will be audio-recorded and reviewed for fidelity, training and consistency.

The group sessions will be conducted by the PIs and graduate students at each site. Groups will be conducted in Spanish and English.

Phase I: Piloting the Intervention (Research Questions 1 &2) Phase I will consist of a one group pre and post-test design with no control group.

Sample and Recruitment. Thirty Latino families will be recruited for the pilot study (15 in Chicago, and 15 in Austin). Community organizations will help recruit eligible families using an informational flyer about the study and an accompanying verbal recruitment script. All recruitment materials will be translated to Spanish. Families who express interest in participation will be contacted by a trained bilingual research assistant to complete consent forms and to schedule the baseline assessment. After a cohort of 15 families has been recruited at each site, the pilot intervention will be scheduled.