Building Blocks for Child and Family Well-being

NCT07351630 | Recruiting

• 1 other identifier: 4745
• Study Type: interventional
• Target: 32
• Locations: 1 country
• Sites: 2

Brief Summary

Background. Understanding emotions, stress, and conflicts within the family context is critical for promoting positive change. However, most support services for families often address child development, parenting, couple relationships separately without considering these as interacting systems that contributes to overall family well-being. This project is to evaluate an existing clinical service in York University Psychology Clinic (YUPC), "Building Blocks for Child and Family Well-being" (BBFW), which provides an integrated understanding of the family context, and equips caregivers with tools to help families connect, problem-solve, cope with stress, and thrive. BBFW is a brief virtual program that promotes experiential learning, provides individually tailored strategies, and builds a community of support for caregivers. The current study aims to examine the feasibility, acceptability, and effectiveness of the BBFW program within the York University Psychology Clinic (YUPC), with four objectives:

1. 1.Evaluating the feasibility of implementing the BBWF program into YUPC clinical services, represented by enrolment rates, sample characteristics, retention (i.e., number of sessions attended, % dropout), adherence (i.e., completing in- and out-of-session activities), as well as the acceptability of the program among participants.
2. 2.Examining sample and clinical characteristics of those attending the BBFW service
3. 3.Exploring the effectiveness of the BBFW program through changes in family functioning and meta-emotion philosophy from pre- to post-intervention, as well as changes at 1- and 3-month follow-ups.
4. 4.Evaluating and refining the program quality using participant quantitative and qualitative feedback.

Conditions

Parenting Skills; Family Well-being; Family Cohesion

Keywords

Program Evaluation; Family Systems; Feasibility Study; Parenting Intervention; Caregivers; Parents

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcomes (11)

• Participants Enrolled Per month

  Number of participants enrolled per month.

  Week 0

• Geographic Reach

  Cities/towns in Ontario families accessing the program reside. Data will be collected through the demographic questionnaire administered at baseline.

  Week 0

• Retention

  The percentage of participants who remain in study until the end of the follow up session.

  Week 0 to Week 18

• Adherence

  Number of sessions attended.

  Week 1 to Week 6

• Adherence

  Completion rate of in session activities.

  Week 6

• Child Age Groups

  Mean age of child of the parent who is seeking service. Data will be collected through the demographic questionnaire administered at baseline.

  Week 0

• Primary Presenting Concern

  Primary presenting concern of parent who is seeking service, collected at baseline using demographic questionnaire. Options include: child emotion regulation; child behavioural problems; challenging siblings dynamics; challenging co-parenting dynamics (working as a team with second parent); family stress, chaos, and/or conflict; other \[please specify\].

  Week 0

• Family Clinical Characteristics

  Family Clinical Characteristics include parent relationship dimension. The Relationship Dimension Scale (Lafrance, Henderson, \& Mayman, 2020) is a 14-item tool for parents to reflect on different aspect of their relationships with their child/children. This is a qualitative measure that will be examined for themes arising in participating caregivers.

  Week 2

• Family Clinical Characteristics

  Family Clinical Characteristics include parent stress. The Family Stress Checklist includes 35 items which measures a parent's level of stress in 7 areas (i.e., financial, professional, physical, relational, environmental, child, parenting, discrimination). Each item is rated on a 5-item scale. Mean of items in each area will be calculated, with minimum score=1, maximum score=5. Higher scores correspond to higher level of stress in each area.

  Week 1

• Client Satisfaction

  Client Satisfaction will be measured using surveys and participant qualitative feedback. A brief satisfaction survey will be administered weekly at the end of each group session. This survey consists of 4 questions about the content, facilitation, group activities/discussion, as well as an open-ended question for general feedback about the session. In the end, participant will be asked to complete another satisfaction survey about the program overall. Means of the survey items will be calculated. Minimum score=1, maximum score=4. Higher scores correspond to higher satisfaction.

  Week 1, Week 2, Week 3, Week 4, Week 5, Week 6

• Client Acceptability

  Percentage of participants reporting at least 'good' on 80 % or more indicators on an Implementation Acceptability Scale that will assess attitude, burden, perceived effectiveness, and ethicality. Minimum score=7, maximum score=35. Higher scores correspond to better outcomes.

  Week 6

Secondary Outcomes (2)

• Pre-Post Change in Parent Reported Family Functioning

  Changes from Week 0 to Week 6; from Week 0 to Week 10; from Week 0 to Week 18

• Pre-Post Change in Parent Meta-Emotion Philosophy

  Changes from Week 0 to Week 6; from Week 0 to Week 10; from Week 0 to Week 18

Study Arms (1)

Experimental: Parent Skills Group Program

EXPERIMENTAL

Caregivers who take part in a 6-week group program on parenting skills

Behavioral: Building Blocks for Family Well-being

Interventions

Building Blocks for Family Well-being BEHAVIORAL

BBFW is a 6-week brief virtual program that promotes experiential learning, provides individually tailored strategies, and builds a community of support for caregivers. The program provides an integrated understanding of the family context, and equips caregivers with tools to help families connect, problem-solve, cope with stress, and thrive. The following topics are covered over 6 weeks: Introduction to the model; Getting to Know Your Family Members (e.g., temperament); Supporting Child Emotions; Promoting Positive Behaviours; Limit-Setting and Sibling Dynamics; Parenting Teams and Wrap-Up.

Experimental: Parent Skills Group Program

Eligibility Criteria

• Age: 18 Years+
• Sex: all
• Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Age Groups: Adult (18-64), Older Adult (65+)

You may qualify if:

• Caregivers aged 18 years or older participating in the BBFW program at York Univeristy's Psychology Clinic in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
• Caregivers with children 18 years old or under are eligible to participate in the BBFW program.
• Caregivers must be residing in Ontario at the time of their service.
• Caregivers must also have access to a digital device with a screen (e.g., phone, tablet, computer) that can be used for virtual services.

You may not qualify if:

• Caregivers who do not consent to participate in research.
• Caregivers whose children are older than 18 years old.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• York University: lead

Study Sites (2)

York University,

Toronto, Ontario, M3J 1P3, Canada

NOT YET RECRUITING

York University Psychology Clinic

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

RECRUITING

Related Publications (4)

• Philipp DA, Prime H, Darwiche J. An ultra-brief systemic intervention to address child mental health symptomatology. Fam Process. 2023 Jun;62(2):469-482. doi: 10.1111/famp.12875. Epub 2023 Mar 23.

  PMID: 36959726 BACKGROUND

• Lafrance, A., Henderson, K. A., & Mayman, S. (2020). Emotion-focused family therapy: A transdiagnostic model for caregiver-focused interventions. American Psychological Association

  BACKGROUND

• Dishion TJ, Shaw D, Connell A, Gardner F, Weaver C, Wilson M. The family check-up with high-risk indigent families: preventing problem behavior by increasing parents' positive behavior support in early childhood. Child Dev. 2008 Sep-Oct;79(5):1395-414. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2008.01195.x.

  PMID: 18826532 BACKGROUND

• Bennett T, Georgiades K, Gonzalez A, Janus M, Lipman E, Pires P, Prime H, Duku E, Jambon M, McLennan JD, Gross J; Making the Race Fair Study Team. Targeted Child Mental Health Prevention and Parenting Support Within a Canadian Context: A Randomized Controlled Trial Evaluating the U.S.-Developed Family Check-Up(R). Prev Sci. 2025 May;26(4):555-567. doi: 10.1007/s11121-024-01741-3. Epub 2024 Nov 22.

  PMID: 39572487 BACKGROUND

Study Officials

• Heather Prime, PhD

  York University

  PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR

Central Study Contacts

Heather Prime, PhD

CONTACT

416-736-5117; hprime@yorku.ca

Truong Phuong Anh Nguyen, BA

CONTACT

647-892-5519; anhtpng@yorku.ca

Study Design

• Study Type: interventional
• Phase: not applicable
• Allocation: NA
• Masking: NONE
• Purpose: TREATMENT
• Intervention Model: SINGLE GROUP
• Sponsor Type: OTHER
• Responsible Party: PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR
• PI Title: Associate Profesor

Study Record Dates

• First Submitted: November 27, 2025
• First Posted: January 20, 2026
• Study Start: October 20, 2025
• Primary Completion (Estimated): November 30, 2026
• Study Completion (Estimated): November 30, 2026
• Last Updated: January 20, 2026

Record last verified: 2026-01

Data Sharing

• IPD Sharing: Will not share

Locations

CA (2)