The Preventing Relational Aggression in Schools Everyday (PRAISE) Program: Adaptations to Overcome Subgroup Differences in Program Benefits.

The Preventing Relational Aggression in Schools Everyday (PRAISE) Program is a school-based program that has shown promise for reducing aggression. PRAISE, 20-session classroom-based universal prevention program, was designed to be appropriate and responsive to the needs of youth within the urban school context. A preliminary trial of PRAISE evinced positive effects for girls but was less effective for boys. Following the trial, the PRAISE program was adapted to enhance its impact for boys while maintaining its impact for girls. The current paper describes the changes and a new 3-school trial of the PRAISE program that examines its impact on subgroups. Results indicate that girls in PRAISE classrooms showed improvements in knowledge of social problem-solving strategies (SIP), reductions in hostile attributions (HAB), decreases in relational aggression, and suppression of overt aggression. Boys in PRAISE classrooms showed decreases in relational aggression and improvements in academic engagement, but no improvement in knowledge of SIP or HAB. Pooled analyses comparing boys' results from the initial trial and the current trial showed significant improvements in relational aggression and relational HAB with no differences in overt aggression, overt HAB, or SIP knowledge. Taken together, this iterative adaptation of PRAISE overcame many subgroup differences in program effects.

Friend to Friend: A Randomized Trial for Urban African American Relationally Aggressive Girls.

OBJECTIVE: To determine the effectiveness of the Friend to Friend (F2F) aggression intervention through a clinical trial with urban African American girls. METHOD: A randomized parallel-group study design was conducted comparing the effectiveness of F2F to an attention control condition (called Homework Study Skills and Organization, HSO) among relationally aggressive girls from six urban low-income elementary schools. Analyses of covariance were utilized for comparing post-test measurement between the two conditions while adjusting for pre-test measurement. For those outcomes with significant intervention effects between the two conditions at post-test, we examined whether the effects were maintained from post-test to follow-up among girls in the F2F group. RESULTS: Results suggest that aggressive girls in F2F decreased their levels of relational aggression and increased their knowledge of social problem solving skills as compared to similar girls randomized to HSO, both of which were maintained at the one-year follow up. CONCLUSION: Programs developed through extensive partnership-based approaches, such as the F2F Program, may have promise for addressing the needs of urban high-risk girls in an acceptable and culturally-sensitive manner.

Protective Factors for Depression among African American Children of Predominantly Low-Income Mothers with Depression.

Maternal depression has a deleterious impact on child psychological outcomes, including depression symptoms. However, there is limited research on the protective factors for these children and even less for African Americans. The purpose of the study is to examine the effects of positive parenting skills on child depression and the potential protective effects of social skills and kinship support among African American children whose mothers are depressed and low-income. African American mothers (n = 77) with a past year diagnosis of a depressive disorder and one of their children (ages 8-14) completed self-report measures of positive parenting skills, social skills, kinship support, and depression in a cross-sectional design. Regression analyses demonstrated that there was a significant interaction effect of positive parenting skills and child social skills on child depression symptoms. Specifically, parent report of child social skills was negatively associated with child depression symptoms for children exposed to poorer parenting skills; however, this association was not significant for children exposed to more positive and involved parenting. Kinship support did not show a moderating effect, although greater maternal depression severity was correlated with more child-reported kinship support. The study findings have implications for developing interventions for families with maternal depression. In particular, parenting and child social skills are potential areas for intervention to prevent depression among African American youth.