Evaluation of the Healthy Relationships Program-Enhanced (HRP-E) for Vulnerable Youth

Study Background and Design:

Vulnerable youth disproportionately experience dating violence, trauma, abuse, and maltreatment. Vulnerable youth are defined as youth at risk of, or currently experiencing, harm or adversities due to social and environmental factors. Youth who have experienced violence, trauma, abuse, and maltreatment have a more difficult time developing healthy, stable relationships in adolescence and beyond. They also often become involved in community mental health care, welfare care, and the justice system. Vulnerable youth are in need of programming to provide education and skill-building in areas such as healthy relationships, mental health, and substance use. Many stakeholders, including university-based researchers and community partners, recommend integrating mental health interventions into settings where youths are already receiving essential services (e.g., schools, child welfare agencies).

The Healthy Relationships Program-Enhanced (HRP-E) fills a gap in mental health promotion and healthy relationship programming. It is a trauma-informed, 16-session manualized program designed to be facilitated in small group settings by educators or community professionals. The program's core components derive from the evidence-based, Canadian Fourth R program, a classroom-based, universal healthy relationships promotion and dating violence prevention curriculum (Crooks et al., 2011, 2015; Wolfe et al., 2009, 2012). The HRP-Enhanced program has been successfully implemented in various settings (e.g., schools, youth corrections). However, the impact of the program on vulnerable youth has not been extensively studied and needs to be further examined to under the effectiveness of this program across diverse settings (e.g., community mental health services, child welfare services, juvenile justice).

Investigators will work with our community partners to undertake a mixed-methods evaluation, including repeated measures time-series survey and follow-up interviews, to examine the impacts of the HRP-Enhanced Program to build evidence on what type of programming works with diverse vulnerable youth populations. Program facilitators will track session activities and youth participation throughout the program, and participate in a post-program implementation. Specifically, investigators will be able to determine the extent to which the HRP-E promotes positive mental health and well-being among vulnerable youth and identify changes in social-emotional assets and resilience, youth well-being, mental health, dating violence and help-seeking.

Participants:

Youth participating in HRP-E and program facilitators are eligible to participate in this study. Investigators will work with each community partner to identify 2 to 4 HRP-E groups they are delivering to be invited to participate in this research study (a total of 20 groups). Approximately 100-150 youth are expected to participate in this study, and approximately 10 to 20 facilitators. The number of youth and facilitators will be dependent on the number of HRP-Enhanced groups delivered and the total number of youth participating in the program.

Procedures:

Youth will be invited to participate in three research activities: a survey at four time-points, individual interviews, and providing consent for the use of program session tracking information collected by facilitators on their participation in the program for research purposes. (note: the session tracking data are collected routinely by facilitators, so it is the use of those data that participants are consenting to, not the collection).

The survey is administered at four time-points: i) two weeks to one month before they start the program (baseline); ii) at the start of the program (pre-intervention); iii) at the end of the program (post-intervention), and; iv) one month after the end of the program (follow-up). The survey asks questions about youths' mental health and well-being, who they might seek support from, dating and dating violence, bullying, and questions about their identities. The interview will take place approximately 4 to 6 months after the youth completes the program. The semi-structured interview asks youth about their experiences participating in the program and any skills they have learned and used.

The session tracking data includes youths' attendance, perceived engagement (as rated by the facilitator), and any trauma-related behaviours shown in group (as rated by facilitator). If youth consent to the sharing of those data, they will be de-identified by facilitators and shared with a unique participant identifier (ID) to facilitate merging of data across sources.

Facilitators implementing the HRP-E program will be invited to share their quality improvement data from their session tracking sheets for research purposes. They are also invited to complete an online implementation survey at the end of the HRP-Enhanced group to understand their experiences implementing the program with the recent HRP group they facilitated. The survey includes questions regarding group and facilitator characteristics, group format and logistics, virtual considerations, modifications, and program impact.

Planned Analyses:

Investigators will explore the baseline and pre-intervention data through bivariate analyses to investigate significant differences in outcomes and regression to the mean. If no significant differences, a new time 1 variable will be calculated using the mean of time 1 and time 2. Bivariate comparisons will be completed between pre-intervention and post-intervention outcomes, as well as pre-intervention and follow-up outcomes. Effect sizes will be calculated using Cohen's d. Analyses will also include general linear model (GLM) repeated measures to examine potential gender effects and/or time-by-gender interactions related to post-intervention outcomes. Finally, chi-square analyses will be conducted to determine whether systematic attrition occurred.