Elsevier

Child Abuse & Neglect

Volume 76, February 2018, Pages 10-22
Child Abuse & Neglect

Evaluation of second step child protection videos: A randomized controlled trial

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2017.10.001Get rights and content

Abstract

This randomized controlled trial (RCT) examined the effects of the Second Step Child Protection Unit videos on parents’ knowledge, motivation, and self-reported communication with their child about personal safety and childhood sexual abuse prevention. Parents of children between the ages of 3–11 years were randomly assigned to the intervention (watching the Second Step videos) or the control (watching videos on child obesity) groups. They completed measures assessing their knowledge of child sexual abuse (CSA), motivation to discuss CSA, self-reported discussions of CSA, child history of victimization, parent exposure to CSA, and comparable measures on topics of health and nutrition at pre-test. Participants viewed the videos one week later and immediately completed post-test 1, and then two months later completed the measures again. Multivariate Analyses of Covariance (MANCOVAs) and serial mediation analyses were conducted with the final sample of 438. The intervention group, compared to the control group, had significant increases in knowledge (specifically, less restrictive stereotype beliefs about CSA) and motivation to talk with their children about CSA both immediately after the intervention and at the two-month follow-up. Although the intervention did not have a direct effect on parent self-reported conversations with their children about CSA, it had a mediated effect. The intervention increased knowledge regarding CSA, which then predicted motivation, which in turn predicted conversations. The most pronounced effect was the intervention’s direct effect of increasing motivation immediately after the intervention, which then increased self-reported conversations with children about personal safety and CSA two months later.

Section snippets

Present study

The overall goals of the study were to evaluate the effectiveness of the videos in increasing knowledge, motivation, and self-reported conversations about CSA, and to assess moderating and mediating mechanisms of the intervention. We hypothesized that compared with control families, parents who viewed the CfC family videos would demonstrate greater knowledge of CSA (and endorse fewer myths) and increased motivation (self-efficacy about sexual abuse education and intentions to talk to their

Participants and recruitment

The final sample included 438 parents of children between the ages of 3 and 11 years. Upon approval from the Institutional Review Board, advertisements about the study were posted through Facebook, Craigslist, and personal and organizational contacts related to parents and families (e.g., parent-teacher associations of schools, school psychologist groups, parenting organizations) across the country. Recruitment efforts targeted underrepresented groups in research by selecting locations,

Results

Demographics for participants in the intervention and comparison conditions are summarized in Table 1. In addition, participants resided in 47 states (Northeast 33.2%, Midwest 13.1%, South 32.9%, and West 20.6%). Compared to the overall population in the U.S. (U.S. Census Bureau, 2016), participants in the present study were more likely to live in the Northeast (vs. 17.4% in U.S.) than in the Midwest (vs. 21% in U.S.) or South (vs. 37.9% in U.S.). There was also an overrepresentation of females

Discussion

Findings from this randomized controlled trial indicated that the Second Step Child Protection Unit family videos led to increased parent knowledge and greater motivation to talk with their children about CSA. Interestingly, both the intervention and control groups showed increases in their self-reported conversations with their children about sexual abuse, suggesting that answering questions about CSA alone may prompt parents to talk about it. Effects on knowledge were small, whereas the time

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Committee for Children, Seattle, WA. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily reflect the views of Committee for Children. We are grateful to the parents who participated in this study. We also thank Kelly O’Hern for managing all aspects of this project and Mark Duerr for his assistance with data collection. Melissa Dudley and Kathleen Allen also provided helpful input regarding collecting data and reporting findings, and

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