Virtual Village for Young Parents

Not Applicable

Recruiting

• Conditions: Gender-based Violence; Intimate Partner Violence

• Registration Number: NCT07226401
• Lead Sponsor: RTI International

Brief Summary

This project will study virtual delivery of Safe Dates for Young Parents (SDYP), a 10-session, group-based intimate partner violence (IPV) prevention program tailored for adolescents and young adults who are pregnant or parenting. This program has the potential to improve the health and well-being of young parents and their children, and virtual delivery may improve participants' ability to attend. The main questions it aims to answer are: (1) Is it feasible and acceptable to implement SDYP in a virtual setting? (2) Are SDYP participants less likely to experience IPV than participants in an alternate health education program? Participants will be invited to a series of virtual program sessions for either SDYP or a health education program focused on physical activity and nutrition and will be asked to complete surveys before the programs begin and up to 6 months later.

Detailed Description

As many as two-thirds of teens who are pregnant or parenting have been the victims or perpetrators of physical intimate partner violence (IPV) and there is an even higher prevalence of psychological abuse in this population. IPV can endanger teen mothers' own health, the health of their pregnancies, and the well- being of their children. Despite this detrimental impact, there is a lack of evidence-based IPV prevention programs that are tailored for pregnant and parenting teens. Moreover, despite the promise of virtual program delivery, which may help improve teens' ability to attend, research has yet to determine feasibility and outcomes of virtual delivery of IPV prevention programs for teens who are pregnant or parenting. This study is a pilot test of the Safe Dates for Young Parents (SDYP) program adapted for virtual delivery. The original Safe Dates is a 10-session, theoretically based, interactive program with demonstrated efficacy in preventing psychological, physical, and sexual dating abuse among teens. We previously adapted Safe Dates for young parents who are pregnant or parenting by integrating pregnancy and parenting themes throughout program sessions, increasing the focus on overcoming barriers to seeking help for intimate partner violence (IPV), and revising sexual assault content. The programs were delivered exclusively in person. A virtual approach to delivery could improve scale-up of SDYP, via increased reach and lower costs. We recently pre-tested selections from the SDYP program over Zoom with 9 young parents to adapt the prevention curriculum and related intervention materials for virtual delivery. In this study, we will build on this work by evaluating the virtual SDYP intervention in a pilot randomized trial to assess implementation outcomes (i.e. feasibility, acceptability, fidelity, and appropriateness) and preliminary effects on IPV outcomes. We will randomize 80 individual pregnant and parenting young people 1:1 to intervention (SDYP) or equal attention control (virtual health education program lessons that do not address IPV) conditions, and we will conduct surveys at baseline and 3-6-month follow-up to assess IPV and related behavioral outcomes. We will assess implementation outcomes (feasibility, acceptability, fidelity, and appropriateness) through program data, qualitative in-depth interviews (IDIs) with facilitators and participants, and survey data from the intervention group. Research activities will be done virtually with participants recruited from several locations around the United States.

Study Timeline

• Status Verified: 2025-11
• Study Start: 2025-11-01
• Study First Submitted: 2025-11-07
• Study First Submitted QC: 2025-11-07
• Last Update Submitted: 2025-11-07
• Study First Posted: 2025-11-10
• Last Update Posted: 2025-11-10
• Primary Completion: 2026-06-01
• Study Completion: 2026-07-31

Recruitment & Eligibility

• Status: RECRUITING
• Sex: All
• Target Recruitment: 80

Inclusion Criteria

Pregnant or parenting youth (Pilot RCT participants)

• Aged 16-21 years.
• Currently pregnant, partner of a pregnant person, or parenting a child (i.e., have contact with child at least once per week).
• Able to speak and read English.
• Willing and able to provide written informed consent.
• Willing and able to provide adequate contact/locator information.

Facilitators (IDI participants)

• Aged 18 years or older.
• Trained and served as a facilitator of the virtual SDYP intervention.
• Able to speak and read English.
• Able and willing to provide verbal informed consent.

Exclusion Criteria (Pilot RCT participants):

• Has any other condition that, in the opinion of the PI or their designee, would preclude informed consent, make study participation unsafe, complicate interpretation of study outcome data, or otherwise interfere with achieving the study objectives.
• Currently participating or will be participating in a violence prevention education program in the next 3 months.
• Previously participated in the Empowering Young Parents study.

Exclusion Criteria

Not provided

Study & Design

• Study Type: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Design: PARALLEL

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Participant attendance	From the first to the last session of SDYP (typically 10 weeks)	Percent of sessions attended (out of 10)
Participant engagement	From the first to the last session of SDYP (typically 10 weeks)	Average of facilitator reports of participant engagement across SDYP sessions on a 4-point scale
Program adherence	From the first to the last session of SDYP (typically 10 weeks)	Percent of SDYP activities completed without changes, averaged across sessions and facilitators
Physical IPV perpetration	Past 3 months measured at baseline and 3 to 6 months after baseline	Endorsement of any of 7 items describing physically aggressive acts toward a partner, adapted from the WHO instrument and Safe Dates questionnaire measure
Physical IPV victimization	Past 3 months measured at baseline and 3 to 6 months after baseline	Endorsement of any of 7 items describing physically aggressive acts by a partner, adapted from the WHO instrument and Safe Dates questionnaire measure
Psychological IPV perpetration	Past 3 months measured at baseline and 3 to 6 months after baseline	Endorsement of any of 9 items describing psychologically aggressive acts toward a partner, adapted from the Safe Dates questionnaire measure
Psychological IPV victimization	Past 3 months measured at baseline and 3 to 6 months after baseline	Endorsement of any of 9 items describing psychologically aggressive acts by a partner, adapted from the Safe Dates questionnaire measure

Trial Locations

Locations (1)

RTI International; 🇺🇸 Durham, North Carolina, United States