Session: Increasing Participant Responsiveness for Latinos in Family-Based Prevention Programs (Society for Prevention Research 21st Annual Meeting)

Recent reviews have identified up to eight dimensions of implementation that are critical in understanding the effectiveness of prevention programs. The most proximal of these in terms of predicting participant outcomes is participant responsiveness. Responsiveness refers to participants’ active engagement within the program and has been measured as attendance, satisfaction, attention and session involvement, and practice of skills taught in the program. While many prevention programs demonstrate the highest levels of effects with those families most in need, those same families are often the hardest to engage when Evidence-Based Programs are delivered in “real world” settings. The proposed set of papers have been brought together to elucidate important predictors of responsiveness in low-income, Latino families. Berkel et. al. present a model examining responsiveness as a mediator of culturally competent and supportive provider behaviors and program outcomes, including parenting, adolescent coping, school engagement, and substance use. Mauricio et. al. test the widely-held notion that fidelity interferes with group process and, in turn, participant attendance. Finally, Winslow et. al.’s paper empirically tests an engagement package using innovative motivational strategies to increase attendance. These papers emphasize the importance of participant responsiveness as a primary dimension of program implementation, as well as ways to increase the public health impact of family prevention programs using theoretically-based engagement strategies.