Improving Racial Socialization Competency for Black Caregivers Through a Culturally-Informed Familial Therapeutic Intervention

Approximately 90% of Black youth report facing or witnessing racial discrimination in their proximal (e.g., classroom) and virtual (e.g., social network) environments. The association between discrimination and negative mental health outcomes (e.g., more severe and higher rates of depression) has been repeatedly established in the literature. Moreover, discrimination impairs the way youth cope, and it is this compromised coping that is associated with negative psychological, academic, and health outcomes. Further, adolescent outcomes may lead to marked health complications and widening disparities in adulthood. Within adolescence, families can have a contributing role in the buffering or exacerbation of coping processes and behaviors to discriminatory experiences. The majority of Black families use racial socialization (RS)-or the verbal and nonverbal communication regarding racial matters-to facilitate coping with race. While RS has been shown to disrupt the trajectory from discrimination to negative psychological outcomes in some respects, it has also contributed to increased youth depressive and anxious symptoms given the wide variety of strategies observed in RS communication. Furthermore, less is known about the impact that grandparents have in the socialization process of their adolescent grandchildren, even though Black grandparents are more likely to rear their grandchildren compared to other races and given current trends. To address these gaps, the emergence of a new RS theory and accompanying clinical intervention seeks to investigate and improve upon this potentially protective cultural process by improving RS competency and enhancing coping processes. The Racial Encounter Coping Appraisal and Socialization Theory (RECAST) postulates that caregivers' explicit and consistent delivery of psychoeducation-informed, skilled, and confident RS practices can reduce caregiver stress and subsequent psychological problems experienced by Black youth via greater coping self-efficacy and coping behaviors. The Engaging, Managing, and Bonding through Race (EMBRace) intervention is the application of RECAST and seeks to improve upon competent RS practices through therapeutic and empirically supported strategies. The use of culturally-relevant theory in clinical treatment is vital to Black youth's coping with specific (i.e., racial) stressors linked to long-term health and wellness outcomes. The empirical investigation of RECAST can also clarify whether aging caregivers (e.g., grandparents) develop the same competencies as other primary caregivers for an intergenerational exploration of RS practices. Thus, the goal of this study is to test the effectiveness of a unique culturally-relevant and family-based intervention developed to enhance RS competencies in Black caregivers and reduce negative psychological outcomes for adolescent children. Building on the preliminary data that I collected during the acceptability pilot testing of the EMBRace intervention in Philadelphia, the proposed study will test the mechanism of caregiver RS competency as a moderator of discrimination, coping self-efficacy, coping, and adolescent psychological outcomes.

The specific aims of the study are to:

1. improve caregiver RS competency, including a decrease in stress;
2. improve adolescents' self-reported coping strategies through enhanced coping self-efficacy; and
3. decrease adolescents' self-reported psychological problems within the EMBRace treatment group.

By posttest and 6-week follow-up, EMBRace families are hypothesized to:

1. be rated as and rate themselves as more competent in their RS practices, including less stress;
2. report more satisfactory coping and higher coping self-efficacy scores; and
3. report less psychological problems relative to pre-test and a control group.