Family Resilience And Mindfulness Empowerment
The goal of this project is to target psychologically distressed divorced parents, to improve parental self-regulation via mindfulness as a promising approach to optimizing an existing evidence-based parenting intervention for divorced families.
Aim 1: Elucidate the perspectives of end users and stakeholders. I will apply user-centered design and conduct formative research, including individual interviews with end users (up to 24 parents), and focus groups with stakeholders (up to 24 court professionals and up to 24 court-approved service providers). I will analyze this qualitative data to generate important themes and concepts with the goal of developing attractive digital MT and engagement strategies that can increase intervention uptake and boost skill practice quality.
Aim 2: Create digital MT and engagement strategies. By conducting 4 rounds of iterative user testing sessions (total of 12 parents), I will create digital MT modules and scalable engagement strategies (reminders, workbooks, and a theory-driven persuasive video). I will apply user-centered design methods (e.g., task-based user testing) to refine the prototypes to achieve full functionality.
Aim 3: Determine feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary efficacy of the combined intervention (MT+eNBP) via a pilot RCT. Parents (N = 96) will be randomized into the intervention or an internet-resources condition at 60/40 ratio. I will assess demographic variables at pretest; intermediate target (parents’ self-regulation measures) and primary target (parenting measures) at pre-/mid-/posttests; primary outcomes (parental distress, children’s internalizing, and externalizing problems) at pre-/posttest; and implementation measures at posttest (feasibility, acceptability, appropriateness, usability, intervention dose, skill practice quality, and qualitative user feedback).