Cluster randomised-control trial for an Australian child protection education program: study protocol for the Learn to be safe with Emmy and friends™

White, Codi, Shanley, Dianne C., Zimmer-Gembeck, Melanie J., Lines, Katrina, Walsh, Kerryann, and Hawkins, Russell (2016) Cluster randomised-control trial for an Australian child protection education program: study protocol for the Learn to be safe with Emmy and friends™. BMC Public Health, 16 (72). pp. 1-7.

[img]
Preview
PDF (Published Version) - Published Version
Available under License Creative Commons Attribution.

Download (462kB) | Preview
View at Publisher Website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-016-272...
 
7
981


Abstract

Background: Child maltreatment has severe short-and long-term consequences for children's health, development, and wellbeing. Despite the provision of child protection education programs in many countries, few have been rigorously evaluated to determine their effectiveness. We describe the design of a multi-site gold standard evaluation of an Australian school-based child protection education program. The intervention has been developed by a not-for-profit agency and comprises 5 1-h sessions delivered to first grade students (aged 5–6 years) in their regular classrooms. It incorporates common attributes of effective programs identified in the literature, and aligns with the Australian education curriculum.

Methods/Design: A three-site cluster randomised controlled trial (RCT) of Learn to be safe with Emmy and friends™ will be conducted with children in approximately 72 first grade classrooms in 24 Queensland primary (elementary) schools from three state regions, over a period of 2 years. Entire schools will be randomised, using a computer generated list of random numbers, to intervention and wait-list control conditions, to prevent contamination effects across students and classes. Data will be collected at baseline (pre-assessment), immediately after the intervention (post-assessment), and at 6-, 12-, and 18-months (follow-up assessments). Outcome assessors will be blinded to group membership. Primary outcomes assessed are children's knowledge of program concepts; intentions to use program knowledge, skills, and help-seeking strategies; actual use of program material in a simulated situation; and anxiety arising from program participation. Secondary outcomes include a parent discussion monitor, parent observations of their children's use of program materials, satisfaction with the program, and parental stress. A process evaluation will be conducted concurrently to assess program performance.

Discussion: This RCT addresses shortcomings in previous studies and methodologically extends research in this area by randomising at school-level to prevent cross-learning between conditions; providing longer-term outcome assessment than any previous study; examining the degree to which parents/guardians discuss intervention content with children at home; assessing potential moderating/mediating effects of family and child demographic variables; testing an in-vivo measure to assess children's ability to discriminate safe/unsafe situations and disclose to trusted adults; and testing enhancements to existing measures to establish greater internal consistency.

Item ID: 42354
Item Type: Article (Scholarly Work)
ISSN: 1471-2458
Keywords: prevention, child protection education, chool-based program, cluster randomised controlled trial, protocol
Additional Information:

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://​creativecommons.​org/​licenses/​by/​4.​0/​), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://​creativecommons.​org/​publicdomain/​zero/​1.​0/​) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.

Funders: Australian Research Council (ARC), Australian Postgraduate Award (APA), Act for Kids
Projects and Grants: ARC Linkage Project LP130100304, APA 2013-2016
Date Deposited: 10 Feb 2016 02:24
FoR Codes: 52 PSYCHOLOGY > 5203 Clinical and health psychology > 520304 Health psychology @ 100%
SEO Codes: 92 HEALTH > 9205 Specific Population Health (excl. Indigenous Health) > 920501 Child Health @ 100%
Downloads: Total: 981
Last 12 Months: 94
More Statistics

Actions (Repository Staff Only)

Item Control Page Item Control Page