Ready, Set, Grow!: A Pilot Study of Grow! Face-to-Face in a Community Setting

Introduction: When evaluating preventive interventions, efficacy and effectiveness studies are considered the industry standard. These types of studies, however, require significant resources making it good practice to perform a feasibility study first. A feasibility study fulfills an important quality assurance function by allowing researchers to examine essential program and implementation elements, such as acceptability, appropriateness, fidelity, demand, evaluation tools, and intervention outcomes, to identify those areas in need of modification. This paper describes the results of a recent feasibility study of the face-to-face version of Grow! that was conducted in two Northeastern communities.

Methods:  Grow! was implemented by two trained facilitators at each site. Over a one-month period, 26 individuals were recruited with 20 attending four or more sessions. Participants completed a variety of assessments including a pre- and post-test, weekly exit cards at the end of each session, a one-item survey following the receipt of a weekly text prompt, and a two-item online survey after watching a weekly online video. They also participated in a focus group at the completion of the fifth session. In addition, facilitators completed weekly exit cards and participated in a focus group after the program ended.

Results: Participant engagement both during the sessions and with the text message prompts, online videos, and their accompanying surveys was high. Participant satisfaction with the program was also high; participants viewed the content as relevant and helpful. Facilitators felt well prepared to deliver the program at their site, and overall fidelity ratings were high, indicating they implemented the curriculum as intended. In addition, most outcome measures performed reliably (α ≥ .7). Significant pre-post differences were found for over-reactive and inconsistent discipline, parenting stress, parental control of child behavior, parental socialization of coping, and child’s outdoor playtime. Effect sizes (i.e., Cohen’s d) for significant outcomes ranged from .5 to .98, suggesting moderate to strong program effects. Three- and six-month follow up evaluations are pending.

Conclusions: The results from this feasibility study are promising. Grow! was implemented by facilitators with fidelity, and participants viewed the program as acceptable and appropriate. They were also engaged with program content and services during and in-between sessions. In addition, evidence was found that the program has the potential to positively impact parenting practices, stress management, and child physical activity behaviors. These findings have informed program improvement features as well as preparations for a large-scale evaluation study involving 10 military communities across the United States.