Multiculturally Responsive Intervention: Reducing Early Adolescent Antisocial Behavior Across Diverse Ethnic Groups Through the Family Check-up

Objective: Multiculturally sensitive and responsive interventions for ethnic minority families are a public health imperative given the changing demographics of the United States. Ethnic minority youth are at greater risk for negative mental health outcomes due in part to limited availability and access to culturally relevant services (Miranda, Nakamura, & Bernal, 2003; Pumariega, Rogers, & Rothe, 2005). The Family Check-Up (FCU) was developed to be a prevention intervention framework that is flexible, responsive, and adaptable to diverse cultural groups (Dishion & Stormshak, 2007). The FCU has garnered empirical support for reducing youth problem behaviors in a series of randomized prevention trials in a range of community settings with youth ages 2-18 (e.g., Connell, Dishion, Yasui, & Kavanagh, 2007; Dishion, Kavanagh, Schneiger, Nelson, & Kaufman, 2002; Dishion et al., 2008; Stormshak, Fosco, & Dishion, 2010). In this study, we empirically evaluate the extent that the intervention is effective for improving youth adjustment and parent-child interactions for diverse cultural groups. Method: A combined sample of 1,193 families was drawn from two large-scale randomized prevention trials conducted in diverse urban middle schools in the Pacific Northwest. Three ethnic groups comprised the sample per youth self-identification of ethnicity (European American, N = 637; African American, N = 381; Hispanic, N = 175). We examined group differences in the hypothesized mediating effect of family conflict (FC) on later antisocial behavior (ASB) using a moderated mediation analytic approach. Results: Path analysis conducted in Mplus (Muthén & Muthén, 2012) revealed that youth in the intervention condition reported significantly less ASB over a 2-year period (grade 6 through 8). Moreover, youth reported reductions in FC at 12 months served as an intervening variable effect. Ethnicity did not moderate the hypothesized relationship. Similarly, no difference in the significance of the intervening effect was found for high and low levels of baseline ASB or FC. Trial effects were also tested, revealing no difference in the hypothesized relationship on ASB through FC. However, baseline levels of ASB and FC were found, indicating some generational differences in the degree of youth and family problems in the 10 years between trials. Conclusions: Reduction in youth problem behaviors through a reduction in family conflict was not moderated by ethnicity which lends support to the multicultural responsiveness of the FCU model. The development of the FCU with multicultural responsivity at the forefront and intervention specific multicultural competence contributed to these findings and others from this sample that have failed to find ethnic group differences. Multiculturally responsive prevention interventions relying on culturally relevant and normed ecological assessment to individually tailor service delivery provide a viable and effective means of large-scale implementation in diverse communities serving children and families. Limitations of this study are discussed, along with areas for future research, including assessment of therapist multicultural competencies.