Preventive Parenting Intervention to Promote Health Equity for Socioeconomically Disadvantaged Groups (PROACTIVE)

Research problem and specific questions: Parenting support programs are well situated to address the needs of immigrant parents and their children.

They encourage positive parenting, strengthen parent-child relationship and promote the mental health of children and parents. Despite these benefits, programs often struggle to reach to immigrant parents and keep them engaged.

Swedish for Immigrants (SFI) centers are an arena not associated with stigma among immigrants and where newly arrived immigrants can easily be reached.

We have two main research questions: 1) is the preventive parenting program International Child Development Program (ICDP) effective in improving children and parents’ mental health, competence in parenting, and aspects of social inclusion, and 2) can it be successfully implemented in SFI?Data and methods: This  is a multi-center project which uses a hybrid study approach.

A non-randomized controlled stepped wedge design will be used to evaluate the effectiveness of the ICDP program, and mixed-methods design to perform a process evaluation of the implementation strategy. Three SFI schools from three municipalities will take part.

A total of 180 participants from three classes in each SFI school will be included.Societal relevance and utilization: The project is highly relevant for tackling health inequality in society and equipping the most disadvantaged groups with preventive parenting intervention that would assist their integration into society, strengthen their sense of competence in parenting, and improve the mental health of themselves and their children.

It will contribute to meeting the high demand, both nationally and internationally, for evidence on how to reach ‘hard-to-reach’ groups with parenting interventions.Plan for project realisation: The project stems from a collaboration between research applicants and three municipalities in Sweden, Borlänge, Fagersta and Vingåker.

We have conducted a feasibility study prior to this application in Borlänge, testing the acceptability and readiness regarding the implementation of the ICDP in SFI.

The current project has been revised following lessons learned from the feasibility study and in collaboration with the municipality. The municipalities will cover the costs for teachers implementing the intervention.

Costs applied for in this application will cover salary for researchers and interpreters as well as the training cost of ICDP facilitators.