About the Project

This project is being conducted in partnership with the USO-NC, and is funded through a five year grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, with endorsement from the Department of Defense.

There are three main goals of the project.

The first goal of the project is to adapt the evidence-based PROSPER Delivery System to include partnerships among organizations supporting National Guard, Reserve, and Active Duty Component families, as well as tailor the Strengthening Families Program: For Parents and Youth 10-14 (SFP 10-14) to better address the needs of these families. For this aspect of the project we conducted surveys, interviews, and focus groups with representatives from service provider organizations as well as military parents. 

The second goal of the project is to form local program delivery teams that will be responsible for offering the SFP 10-14 for Military Families in their counties. These teams will be provided with technical assistance by the project team on strategies for recruiting families into the program as well as sustaining the program for multiple years. We will conduct surveys with members of these teams to learn about their experiences with the partnership and we will collect information related to program delivery, such as quality of implementation and resources generated. 

The third goal of the project is to conduct a randomized controlled trial of the SFP 10-14 for Military Families Program, delivered by local program-delivery teams, with approximately 300 families of 10-12-year-old children. Half of the participating families will be randomly assigned to the intervention group and the other half will be assigned to the comparison group. One parent and the participating child from each family will be asked to complete up to four phone interviews. The family will receive $100 as compensation for each interview. We hope to learn whether the program enhances a range of parent and youth skills, family functioning, and parent-youth communication, and reduces youth substance misuse and other problem behaviors.