Strong Families Strong Forces: Supporting Active Duty Families With Very Young Children

Supporting Military Families With Young Children Throughout the Deployment Lifecycle

Status

Completed

Phases

Unknown

Study type

Interventional

Source

ClinicalTrials.gov

Registry ID

NCT03045159

Enrollment

115

Registered

2017-02-07

Start date

2016-03-01

Completion date

2019-03-01

Last updated

2026-07-24

For informational purposes only — not medical advice. Sourced from public registries and may not reflect the latest updates. Terms

Conditions

Deployment

Keywords

deployment cycle, military family, prevention, stress, military child, parenting, coparenting

Brief summary

The purpose of this research is to evaluate the efficacy of the Strong Families Strong Forces Parenting Program compared to a parental self-care (Strong Parents) condition in a sample of 150 Active Duty Families with children ages birth to 5 years.

Detailed description

The overall aim of this research is to adapt and evaluate the efficacy of a parenting program compared to a parental self-care program for Active Duty families. A sample of 150 Active Duty families with young children who have a parent scheduled to deploy in the next six months will be recruited to participate. Families will be assigned either to receive the Strong Families Strong Forces Parenting Program, designed to reduce the impact of deployment separation on parenting stress and co-parenting, or to the Strong Parents Self-Care program, designed to support parents to focus on the importance of self-care throughout the deployment cycle. Investigators will compare the two groups on parenting stress, quality of parent-child relationships, parenting/co-parenting, and family and child well-being.

Interventions

BEHAVIORALStrong Families Strong Forces

Parenting program

BEHAVIORALStrong Parents

self-care program

Study design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Intervention model

PARALLEL

Primary purpose

PREVENTION

Masking

SINGLE (Outcomes Assessor)

Masking description

outcomes assessor blinded to study condition

Eligibility

Sex/Gender

ALL

Age

18 Years to No maximum

Healthy volunteers

Yes

Inclusion criteria

* Cohabitating couple with at least one child age birth to 5 years old in which one parent is active duty and is scheduled to deploy within the next 6 months * Anticipated deployment time must be at least six months and excludes separations due to the Service Member attending a school * Anticipate that non-deploying parent will remain in the area during the deployment * Both parents are willing to consent to study participation * DEERS -eligible * 18 years or older * English-speaking * The parent remaining at home to care for the children anticipates remaining within 30 miles of Fort Hood to be seen in home, otherwise will need to be seen in office * Anticipate that both parents will remain in the area for at least three months after redeployment to complete intervention and follow-up assessment

Exclusion criteria

* Any family member with a significant medical or psychiatric condition requiring a higher level of care than can be provided by the study/comparison protocols * Active psychosis or mania

Design outcomes

Primary

Measure	Time frame	Description
Parenting Stress Index (PSI)	Change from baseline to 24 months	Assesses parenting stress in three domains: parental distress, parent-child dysfunctional interaction, and difficult child.

Secondary

Measure	Time frame	Description
Coparenting Scale	Change from baseline to 24 months	Assesses parents' perception of their own coparenting behavior.

Countries

United States

Contacts

PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOREllen DeVoe, Ph. D. LICSW

Boston University

Outcome results

None listed

Source: ClinicalTrials.gov · Data processed: Jul 25, 2026