NCT07226401

Virtual Village for Young Parents

Preventing Intimate Partner Violence Among Teens Who Are Pregnant or Parenting

• Status: Recruiting
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 80 (estimated)
• Sponsor: RTI International · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 16 Years – 21 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

This project will study virtual delivery of Safe Dates for Young Parents (SDYP), a 10-session, group-based intimate partner violence (IPV) prevention program tailored for adolescents and young adults who are pregnant or parenting. This program has the potential to improve the health and well-being of young parents and their children, and virtual delivery may improve participants' ability to attend. The main questions it aims to answer are: (1) Is it feasible and acceptable to implement SDYP in a virtual setting? (2) Are SDYP participants less likely to experience IPV than participants in an alternate health education program? Participants will be invited to a series of virtual program sessions for either SDYP or a health education program focused on physical activity and nutrition and will be asked to complete surveys before the programs begin and up to 6 months later.

Detailed description

As many as two-thirds of teens who are pregnant or parenting have been the victims or perpetrators of physical intimate partner violence (IPV) and there is an even higher prevalence of psychological abuse in this population. IPV can endanger teen mothers' own health, the health of their pregnancies, and the well- being of their children. Despite this detrimental impact, there is a lack of evidence-based IPV prevention programs that are tailored for pregnant and parenting teens. Moreover, despite the promise of virtual program delivery, which may help improve teens' ability to attend, research has yet to determine feasibility and outcomes of virtual delivery of IPV prevention programs for teens who are pregnant or parenting. This study is a pilot test of the Safe Dates for Young Parents (SDYP) program adapted for virtual delivery. The original Safe Dates is a 10-session, theoretically based, interactive program with demonstrated efficacy in preventing psychological, physical, and sexual dating abuse among teens. The investigators previously adapted Safe Dates for young parents who are pregnant or parenting by integrating pregnancy and parenting themes throughout program sessions, increasing the focus on overcoming barriers to seeking help for intimate partner violence (IPV), and revising sexual assault content. The programs were delivered exclusively in person. A virtual approach to delivery could improve scale-up of SDYP, via increased reach and lower costs. The investigators recently pre-tested selections from the SDYP program over Zoom with 9 young parents to adapt the prevention curriculum and related intervention materials for virtual delivery. In this study, the investigators will build on this work by evaluating the virtual SDYP intervention in a pilot randomized trial to assess implementation outcomes (i.e. feasibility, acceptability, fidelity, and appropriateness) and preliminary effects on IPV outcomes. The study will randomize 80 individual pregnant and parenting young people 1:1 to intervention (SDYP) or equal attention control (virtual health education program lessons that do not address IPV) conditions, and conduct surveys at baseline and 3-6-month follow-up to assess IPV and related behavioral outcomes. The investigators will assess implementation outcomes (feasibility, acceptability, fidelity, and appropriateness) through program data, qualitative in-depth interviews (IDIs) with facilitators and participants, and survey data from the intervention group. Research activities will be done virtually with participants recruited from several locations around the United States.

Conditions

• Gender-based Violence
• Intimate Partner Violence

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Virtual Safe Dates for Young Parents	Safe Dates for Young Parents (SDYP) is a healthy relationship and intimate partner violence (IPV) prevention program, adapted from "Safe Dates (Foshee et al., 1998; Foshee et al., 1996)" for pregnant or parenting young adults. The investigators adapted the prevention curriculum and related intervention materials for virtual delivery via Zoom. The program consists of ten group-based sessions (50 minutes of content each) led by a trained facilitator. The program includes interactive discussions, analysis of scenarios, games, role-plays, and brainstorming.
BEHAVIORAL	HealthSmart	The HealthSmart program will use 10 digital high school curriculum lessons focused on physical activity and nutrition. The sessions will be formatted appropriately to be delivered via zoom. Participants may be asked to complete handouts, listen to presentations, and participate in discussions. Topics may include information about different nutrients, how nutrients affect health, how to read food labels, healthy eating, and guidelines for physical activity.

Timeline

• Start date: 2025-11-11
• Primary completion: 2026-06-01
• Completion: 2026-07-31
• First posted: 2025-11-10
• Last updated: 2025-12-15

Locations

1 site across 1 country: United States