The New Beginnings Podcast: Brief Audio Intervention for Parents From Divorced and Separated Families

NCT07529548 | Recruiting

• 1 other identifier: STUDY00017352
• Study Type: interventional
• Target: 80
• Locations: 1 country
• Sites: 1

Brief Summary

The goal of this study is to learn if the New Beginnings Podcast can help children whose parents are going through a divorce or separation. The podcast shares parenting strategies that have been shown to help in past in-person and online programs. This study will also look at how easy it is for parents to use the podcast and how helpful they find it. The main questions it aims to answer are:

1. 1.Do parents find the podcast easy to use, helpful, and relevant?
2. 2.Does listening to the podcast improve children's mental health?
3. 3.Does the podcast help parents build stronger relationships with their children and reduce conflict between parents?
4. 4.Listen to podcast episodes over the course of the study
5. 5.Answer questions about their experiences with the podcast
6. 6.Complete surveys about their child's well-being, their parenting, and family relationships

Conditions

Parent Child Relationship; Parenting Intervention; Parenting Behaviour; Interparental Conflict; Feasibility Study; Acceptability; Appropriateness; Child Mental Health

Keywords

Parenting; Divorce; Separation; Separated and Divorced Parents; Podcast; Prevention; Parenting Intervention; New Beginnings Program; Child Mental Health

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcomes (4)

• Feasibility of Intervention

  Feasibility of Intervention Measure (FIM) The FIM assesses the extent to which an intervention can be successfully used or carried out in a given context or setting (Weiner et al., 2017). It includes 4 items rated on a 5-point Likert scale (1=Completely disagree to 5=Completely agree). Item responses are averaged (range 1-5); higher scores indicate greater perceived feasibility. Psychometric evaluation shows acceptable reliability and validity alongside AIM and IAM.

  Collected at Post-test only (Week 7) for Intervention Group Only

• Usability of Intervention

  Intervention Usability Scale (IUS) Usability of the intervention will be assessed using the Intervention Usability Scale (IUS), a 10-item self-report questionnaire adapted from the System Usability Scale (SUS). Items are rated on a 5-point scale ranging from 0 to 4, with response options reflecting increasing agreement. Item scores span the full possible range (0-4). Item responses are averaged to compute a mean usability score (range 0-4), with higher scores indicating greater perceived usability. Emerging psychometrics support a two-factor structure ("Usable" and "Learnable") alongside a reliable total score (Lyon et al., 2021).

  Collected at Post-test only (Week 7) for Intervention Group only

• Acceptability of Intervention

  Acceptability of Intervention Measure (AIM) The AIM assesses perceived acceptability of an intervention among intended users/implementers (Weiner et al., 2017). It contains 4 items rated on a 5-point Likert scale (1=Completely disagree to 5=Completely agree). Scores are typically averaged (range 1-5), with higher values indicating greater acceptability. Initial development and testing demonstrated strong content validity, structural validity, reliability, known-groups validity, and responsiveness

  Collected at Post-test only (Week 7) for Intervention Group only

• Appropriateness of Intervention

  Intervention Appropriateness Measure (IAM) The IAM assesses perceived appropriateness or fit of an intervention for a given setting, provider role, or target population (Weiner et al., 2017). It includes 4 items rated on a 5-point Likert scale (1=Completely disagree to 5=Completely agree). Item responses are averaged to produce a 1-5 score; higher values indicate the intervention is viewed as a better fit. Development work shows sound psychometric properties consistent with AIM and FIM.

  Collected at Post-test only (Week 7) for Intervention Group only

Secondary Outcomes (4)

• Child Internalizing Symptoms (Child-Report)

  Baseline (Week 0) and Post-Test (Week 7)

• Child Internalizing Symptoms (Parent-Report)

  Baseline (Week 0) and Post-Test (Week 7)

• Child Externalizing Symptoms (Parent-Report)

  Baseline (Week 0) and Post-Test (Week 7)

• Child Externalizing Problems (Child-Report)

  Baseline (Week 0) and Post-Test (Week 7)

Other Outcomes (9)

• Children's Perception of Interparental Conflict (Parent-Report)

  Baseline (Week 0) and Post-Test (Week 7)

• Parent-Adolescent Communication (Parent-Report)

  Baseline (Week 0) and Post-Test (Week 7)

• Parenting Self-Efficacy (Parent-Report)

  Baseline (Week 0) and Post-Test (Week 7)

Study Arms (2)

Podcast Program (Intervention Group)

EXPERIMENTAL

Parents in the intervention arm will receive access to five podcast episodes based on the original New Beginnings Program. The episodes teach core parenting skills designed to improve parent-child relationship quality, enhance communication, and reduce children's exposure to interparental conflict. Each episode includes both didactic instruction and audio demonstrations of parent-child interactions. Parents are encouraged to listen to one episode per week. Listening activity is tracked, but parents do not receive financial incentives for completing episodes. Episodes range from 10 to 25 minutes in length, and parents are encouraged to adjust the playback speed as needed to suit their preferences.

Behavioral: New Beginnings Podcast Program

Waitlist (Control Group)

EXPERIMENTAL

Waitlist (Control Group): Seven weeks after the initial survey, parents will complete a post-test survey. Upon completion of the post-test survey or withdrawal from the study, all podcast episodes will be made available to the parent.

Other: No Interventions

Interventions

New Beginnings Podcast Program BEHAVIORAL

Parents will listen to 5 episodes of the New Beginnings Podcast (NBP-P) over 5 weeks. They will listen to one episode per week.

Also known as: NBP-P, NBP, New Beginnings Podcast, New Beginning Program

Podcast Program (Intervention Group)

No Interventions OTHER

Parents in the waitlist group will get access to the podcast after completion of the post-test survey or withdrawal from the study.

Also known as: No Intervention, Waitlist, Waitlist Control

Waitlist (Control Group)

Eligibility Criteria

• Age: 8 Years+
• Sex: all
• Healthy Volunteers: No
• Age Groups: Child (0-17), Adult (18-64), Older Adult (65+)

You may qualify if:

• For Parents, eligibility criteria are:
• divorced, separated, separated but never married, or divorcing/separating within the last two years;
• one or more children between the ages of 8-18 years old;
• have in-person contact with their child(ren) at least three hours per week or have at least one overnight visit every other week;
• have access to a smartphone with internet that can play audio files;
• English speaking.
• For children, eligibility criteria are:
• have a parent who is participating in the trial;
• be between the ages of 8-18 and
• have access to a computer to complete assessments. If a parent has more than one child aged 8-18 interested in participating, we will randomly select one child to ensure independence of responses.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Charla Aubrey Rhodes: lead

Study Sites (1)

ASU Dept of Psychology

Tempe, Arizona, 85281, United States

RECRUITING

Related Publications (2)

• Wolchik SA, Sandler IN, Winslow EB, Porter MM, Yun-Tein J. Effects of an asynchronous, fully web-based parenting-after-divorce program to reduce interparental conflict, increase quality of parenting and reduce children's post-divorce behavior problems. Fam Court Rev. Published online 2022.

  BACKGROUND

• Wolchik SA, Sandler IN, Weiss L, Winslow E. New Beginnings: An empirically-based program to help divorced mothers promote resilience in their children. In: Briesmeister JM, Schaefer CE, eds. Handbook of Parent Training: Helping Parents Prevent and Solve Problem Behaviors. John Wiley & Sons Inc.; 2007:25-62.

  BACKGROUND

Related Links

• Link to recruitment Website

MeSH Terms

Interventions

Waiting Lists

Intervention Hierarchy (Ancestors)

Appointments and Schedules; Organization and Administration; Health Services Administration

Central Study Contacts

Charla A Rhodes, Ph.D., Clinical Psychology

CONTACT

‪(602) 767-2426‬; carhode1@asu.edu

Study Design

• Study Type: interventional
• Phase: not applicable
• Allocation: RANDOMIZED
• Masking: SINGLE
• Who Masked: OUTCOMES ASSESSOR
• Purpose: PREVENTION
• Intervention Model: PARALLEL
• Sponsor Type: OTHER
• Responsible Party: SPONSOR INVESTIGATOR
• PI Title: Co-Principal Investigator

Model Details: Participants are assigned in a 1:1 ratio to either the intervention (NBP-P podcast) or the waitlist control group using parallel assignment. Randomization is stratified by parent gender to ensure balanced representation across conditions. Participants remain in their assigned condition throughout the study period.

Study Record Dates

• First Submitted: August 15, 2025
• First Posted: April 14, 2026
• Study Start: August 15, 2025
• Primary Completion (Estimated): December 1, 2026
• Study Completion (Estimated): December 1, 2026
• Last Updated: April 14, 2026

Record last verified: 2025-08

Data Sharing

• IPD Sharing: Will share
• Shared Documents: STUDY PROTOCOL, SAP, ICF, ANALYTIC CODE
• Time Frame: The IPD and supporting information will be made available at the time of publication and will remain publicly available indefinitely on OSF.
• Access Criteria: All interested researchers will have unrestricted public access to the de-identified dataset, statistical analysis code, and supporting documentation via the Open Science Framework (OSF). Materials will be hosted on a publicly accessible OSF project page linked in all related publications.

Locations

US (1)