A Digital Health Technology to Prevent Family Violence and Improve Child Mental Health

7. Project Summary/Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic has increased the need for eHealth interventions that target families and children at- risk of family violence and long-term mental health problems. Escalating rates of anxiety and depression during COVID-19 have impacted families adversely, and have led to impaired parent-child relationships and increased family conflict (Russell et al., 2020). These risks are exacerbated by increases in mental health problems and limited access to social support and treatment (Taylor et al., 2021). The challenges of parenting coupled with increases in stress and violence during COVID-19 have accelerated the need for treatments that target these problems. Furthermore, the COVID-19 pandemic has widened the gap between families who have services and support and those who do not, increasing health disparities in this population. As such, we have developed the Family Check-Up Online to support families and children by improving family relationships and mental health. The FCU Online has the potential to reduce health disparities by providing an accessible, easily disseminated version of the FCU to families at-risk of adverse outcomes after COVID-19. A recent and timely systematic review of telehealth therapy for families suggest that they are equally effective as in-person treatments, and improve both parent mental health and child outcomes (McClean et al., 2021), supporting the use of eHealth approaches for mental health intervention. In the proposed application, we will examine the feasibility and commercial potential of the FCU Online by interviewing key stakeholders in schools and school- based mental health settings. We propose to improve the back-end structure of the FCU Online, which was previously developed as part of a clinical trial, to support wide-scale commercialization of the product including flexible module delivery, progress monitoring, and self-enrollment. We will test the product with a series of stakeholder focus groups and usability testing to evaluate the feasibility and acceptability of the product for commercialization. In Phase II, we plan to develop and test e-learning models for coach training as well as evaluate the product in a clinical trial to examine the reach, effectiveness, adoption, implementation, and maintenance of the program in real-world settings. Our team includes experts in implementation and dissemination, evidence-based interventions for at-risk families, business development and marketing, and product development. Letters of support from community and school providers demonstrate our strong partnerships that will facilitate this research. The study will significantly contribute to our understanding of mobile ehealth interventions for students at-risk of violence in school settings.