Establishing Smoke-free Homes With Families Involved in Child Protective Services: Effectiveness-implementation Trial of an Integrated Program

Longitudinal studies have found beneficial effects of prevention and intervention efforts for children exposed to poverty and other adverse experiences on long-term health and a range of social and psychological outcomes. Evidence-based intervention programs exist for smoke-free homes and for child maltreatment risk. However, to our knowledge, no programs jointly target SHS (secondhand smoke) exposure and maltreatment risk, despite the evidence that these risk factors often co-occur for children living in low-SES households.

Some Things are Better Outside (STBO) is a brief intervention that is highly effective in promoting adoption of smoke-free home rules among low-SES households. Three randomized controlled trials (RCTs) documented significant intervention effects, with 40.0 to 62.9% of clients reporting a smoke-free home when reached for follow-up at 6 months post-baseline. Self-reported smoke-free homes were validated by air nicotine at 3-months post-baseline. STBO was also effective in a dissemination trial conducted with five 2-1-1 agencies across multiple states. The six-week intervention was designed to be easy to deliver, consisting of three mailings of print materials and a 15-20 minute coaching call.

SafeCare is a brief parenting intervention that is highly effective in reducing child maltreatment perpetration and improving behavioral outcomes for Child Protective Services-involved (CPS-involved) parents of young children (0 to 5 years) as the result of child physical abuse or neglect (the two most common forms of substantiated maltreatment). SafeCare is delivered in the home over 18-weeks, and the curriculum focuses on promotion of positive parenting skills, home safety, and child health. SafeCare is disseminated through the National SafeCare Training and Research Center (NSTRC) at Georgia State University (GSU), directed by Self-Brown (MPI) and Whitaker (Co-I).

In considering the best approaches for targeting SHS, it is imperative to consider how to integrate interventions with documented success for improving smoke-free rules and with high levels of parent engagement (which STBO has consistently demonstrated), into effective parenting intervention programs, such as SafeCare (which has also been demonstrated to be highly engaging). Thoughtful integration would ensure the maintenance of active ingredients for both programs, and parent engagement.

The goal of Smoke Free SafeCare is to conduct an effectiveness-implementation hybrid trial type 1 of the SFSC intervention for parents with substantiated maltreatment. This braided intervention will be compared to standard SafeCare.