Program Profile: Protecting Strong African American Families (ProSAAF)

The program is designed to improve family functioning and enhance youth development by targeting parents’ relationships and parenting skills. The program is rated Effective. For the intervention group, there were statistically significant increases in levels of parental monitoring and positive self-concept, as well as statistically significant decreases in conduct problems and substance use initiation. There were no significant effects for racial pride socialization.

An Effective rating implies that implementing the program is likely to result in the intended outcome(s).

This program's rating is based on evidence that includes at least one high-quality randomized controlled trial.

Program Goals/Target Population

The Protecting Strong African American Families (ProSAAF) program was developed to meet the needs of African American couples raising preadolescent and adolescent youth in the rural south. African American families often face chronic stressors, including limited economic resources, exposure to neighborhood violence, racial discrimination, and marital instability (Nelson et al. 2009). The program is designed to improve family functioning by targeting couple and parenting relationships, promoting positive interactions among couples, and enhancing positive youth development (which includes increasing substance use resistance, reducing conduct problems, and developing positive self-concept). The program seeks to improve parenting behaviors, which can then lead to improved youth outcomes.

Program Activities

The program includes six 2-hour sessions, delivered in the home, to maximize fathers’ participation. The sessions are primarily focused on parents, with youth joining the final 30 minutes of each session. The first 60 minutes of the sessions are focused on the couple’s issues, and the following 30 minutes focus on parenting topics. Couple issues include daily hassles and burdens, and communication skills such as active listening and recognition of how emotional states may compromise listening. Parenting or co-parenting issues include school, peers, parental monitoring, family rules, and building racial pride in children. The facilitator initiates discussion by focusing on the particular stressors that African American couples experience (e.g., work, racism, money), followed by an introduction to cognitive and behavioral techniques for managing stressors. Sessions then transition into encouraging the development of other protective couple and parenting processes such as conflict resolution and racial socialization. Each session emphasizes partners’ use of enhanced communication in response to daily stressors and use of pro-relationship behaviors to collaboratively address these stressors.

The facilitator then meets with the youth for a 15-minute activity focused on topics such as building self-esteem, handling peer pressure, and understanding parents. For the final 15 minutes of the session, both the youth and their parents engage in an activity such as a discussion or a game.

Program Theory

ProSAAF was developed through consideration of the unique stressors experienced by African American families in the rural south. Stress-spillover theories suggest that experiencing stressors (e.g., economic instability, violence, racism) reduces parents’ capacity to engage in positive co-parenting practices (Nelson et al. 2009). High levels of stress can be detrimental to family functioning, damaging the protective processes that foster resilience in families (Neff and Karney 2009). Additionally, theories on racial socialization suggest that the processes by which parents convey messages about race to their children affects how youth develop their racial identity. A positive racial identity is postulated to reduce substance use among youth of color (Neblett et al. 2008; Neblett, Terzian, and Harriott 2010).

Additional Information

ProSAAF is based on protective processes identified in prior prevention research, specifically from the Strong African American Families (SAAF) program developed by Brody and colleagues (2004). SAAF is a parent training and family therapy program designed to reduce youth substance use and sexual activity. ProSAAF added new components to the SAAF program, including content related to positive couple interactions, specific dimensions of protective parenting, and couples’ teamwork in the face of economic adversity and other daily stressors (Beach et al. 2016). The SAAF program can also be founded on the CrimeSolutions website: https://www.crimesolutions.ojp.gov/ratedprograms/41

Study 1

Beach and colleagues (2016) conducted a randomized controlled design to examine the effects of the Protecting Strong African American Families (ProSAAF) program on parenting practices and youth risk and protective factors for substance use. Participants were African American couples with a preadolescent or adolescent child. All participants resided in mall towns or communities in Georgia, where the poverty rates are among the highest in the nation, and unemployment rates are above the national average (Proctor and Dalaker 2003). Participants were recruited through letters or phone calls. Couples were eligible to participate if they 1) self-identified as an African American couple with a child between the ages of 10 and 13, 2) had been living together or partnered for 2 or more years, and 3) were co-parenting the target child together for at least 1 year. Both parents and youth had to be willing to answer questions about their experiences inside and outside of the family. Additionally, couples had to be willing to spend 6 weeks engaged in an in-home educational program if they were randomly assigned to the intervention condition.

Of those eligible, a total of 206 families agreed to participate in the study and were randomized to the ProSAAF intervention (n =105) or the information-only control condition (n = 101). At the 8-month follow up, 70 intervention families and 69 control families were available for analysis. In the intervention group, more than half of the couples (70 percent) were married or cohabitating. The average length of marriage was 10.5 years. The couples had an average of three children. The fathers were, on average, 42 years of age, and the mothers had an average age of 38. The average age of the target child was 10.9 years. Fifty percent of the target children were male. In the control group, more than half (66 percent) of the couples were married or cohabitating. The average length of marriage was 9.33 years. The couples had an average of two children. The fathers were, on average, 38.6 years old; the mothers were, on average, 35.8 years old. The average age of the target child was 11 years. Sixty-one percent of the target children were male. There were statistically significant differences between groups on the age of adults, with ProSAAF couples being, on average, 3 years older than control group couples. The researchers controlled for couples’ average age during analyses. There were no other statistically significant differences between groups.

Outcomes were assessed using several different measures at the 8-month follow up. Parental monitoring was measured using the Parental Monitoring Scale (Brody et al. 2004). Racial pride socialization was measured using the Racial Pride Socialization Scale (Lesane-Brown et al. 2005). Conduct problems were assessed using the Self-Report Delinquency Scale (Elliott and Ageton 1980). Self-concept was assessed using two different scales, the Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression Scale (Radloff 1977) and the Inventory of Black Identity Centrality and Private Regard Scale (Sellers et al. 1997). Finally, substance use initiation was assessed based on youth’s self-reported use of cigarettes, alcohol, and marijuana. The researchers did not conduct subgroup analyses.

Facilitators are African American and drawn from communities similar to those being served. They receive 40 hours of training in program content, facilitation, delivery methods, and adherence to the program manual. Facilitators have a bachelor’s degree and 2 or more years of experience providing prevention programming or home visits in rural Georgia (Beach et al. 2016).

These sources were used in the development of the program profile:

These sources were used in the development of the program profile: