Clinical Research Directory

Enhancing Preschool Children's Attention and Behaviour: Parent-Focused Program

This study aims to evaluate the feasibility and efficacy of the Building Regulation in Dual Generations (BRIDGE) program for caregivers with significant mental health concerns and preschool and young children (3-7 years old) with elevated attention and/or behavior problems. The BRIDGE program focuses on supporting parental psychological distress and improving young children's self-regulation (SR), thereby reducing their attention and behavior problems. The long-term goal of this work is to improve family well-being and social-emotional development for young children by implementing an accessible and scalable dual-regulation program. The investigators will achieve this through the following key objectives: 1. Assess the feasibility and accessibility of BRIDGE for preschool and young children (3-7 years old) with significant attention and behavior programs through questionnaires asking about attendance, satisfaction, and unmet needs. 2. Examine the efficacy of BRIDGE compared to control group at improving maternal mental health and child attention and behavioral difficulties in young children (primary outcomes). The investigators will also examine parenting stress (secondary outcome). 3. Identify predictors of academic readiness skills in preschool and young children. The investigators hypothesize that an increase in parental and child emotion-regulation skills and reduced attention, as well as behavioral problems, will lead to increased pre-academic skills in children.

Improving Preschool Outcomes by Addressing Maternal Depression in Head Start

Within a research network of Head Start centers in Massachusetts, an efficacy trial of a stepped-care intervention (SCI) to address maternal depression, using intervention components that both prevent depression and help those in major depressive episode (MDE) engage with care, will be conducted. Both the prevention and engagement components of the model have strong, supportive randomized trial evidence for both their efficacy and safety; but they have yet to be synthesized and tested within a coordinated intervention, applicable to a broad population base. Stepped-care interventions are commonly used in mental health service projects, in which the intensity or type of service is calibrated to the severity of illness.