Randomized Controlled Trial of Prenatal Coparenting Intervention (CoparentRCT)

Seventy-five randomly-assigned control group families will receive county services as-usual
for pregnant parents and assistance of the partnering health and human service agencies with
referrals to desired services, while 75 experimental group families will receive the same
services and aid, plus a 6-session prenatal intervention with a post-natal booster session.
The intervention addresses the importance of safe, healthy families for early infant
development, the impact a cooperative and sustained coparenting alliance can have in
promoting positive infant development, challenges unmarried parents face cultivating a
coparenting alliance together when their commitment to one another as romantic or married
partners is in doubt, and ways to surmount these obstacles, maintain rapport, and sustain a
strong alliance. All 150 participating families, both at intake (prior to the intervention)
and then again at 3 and 12 months post-partum, will report beliefs about fatherhood; extent
of depressive symptomatology; and quality of the mother-father partnership.
State-of-the-field coparenting observations will be conducted at each follow-up, along with
measures of parental stress, domestic violence, perceived coparenting support, father
engagement, and infant socioemotional adjustment. Analyses will examine impact of the
intervention on promoting more supportive, coordinated post-partum coparenting alliances and
more positive adult and infant outcomes. Exploratory analyses will examine questions relevant
to father associations with child adjustment and whether this coparent intervention can
reduce domestic violence.

Inclusion Criteria:

An applicant is considered eligible if the pregnancy is the mother's first with the baby's
father; the mother and father are unmarried; and reported income places at or below the
county and state poverty line. The target population is African American, but mixed race
parents may also enroll so long as at least one parent is African American. Minor parents
will be recruited only if legally emancipated or with consent of their parent or guardian
(with an exception allowed if minor parent is estranged from parent or LAR). If a potential
participant reports a prior history of IPV, s/he may still be eligible for participation
pending a more detailed assessment completed by trained project staff using the Danger
Assessment Scale (Campbell, 2003).

Exclusion Criteria:

Families are excluded if either partner 1) has recently (within the past year) been
arrested and convicted for violence (assault) perpetrated against someone other than a
current or former partner who is the co-parent of one of their children; 2) demonstrates
evidence of psychotic symptoms or suicidal ideation on the Brief Symptom Inventory; or 3)
is deemed high risk or in need of more intensive intervention. Risk determination is made
by weighing the parent's report on the Danger Assessment Scale (DAS). As a rule of thumb,
DAS scores of 9 or higher result in automatic exclusion from the study. However, even with
a score below 9, a parent may disclose one or more of the following issues during
administration of the DAS - any of which would result in exclusion from the study: 1)
parent reports requiring medical care because of significant injuries due to partner's
violence, 2) parent says she fears for her life, 3) parent reports that the partner has
threatened with a weapon and owns a gun or has a gun in the household; 4) parent reports
that the partner has threatened to kill her; 5) parent reports that violence has escalated
recently; 6) parent reports the partner's use of illicit drugs such as cocaine,
methamphetamines, hallucinogens, or opiates.