Families First Program Evaluation in Indonesia

Families First Home Visiting Program (Families First) is a parenting support program anchored on children's rights that gives parents clear guidance on child development, parenting, and positive discipline practices. Families First is an adaptation of the Positive Discipline in Everyday Parenting (PDEP) Program for the West Java context. This trial aims to evaluate the effectiveness of Families First. This is a pragmatic, delayed-entry, parallel-group, stratified, cluster-randomized controlled trial in a real-world setting. Twenty rural and urban villages in the Cianjur district of Indonesia, involving 720 caregivers of children up to 7 years of age, are randomized to two parallel arms. Villages receive either a parenting program consisting of 10 group sessions and 4 home visits or the standard community health and social services. After completion of the trial period, the delayed group is offered the program. The primary outcome is self-reported frequency of corporal/physical and emotional punishment. The secondary outcomes are indicators of involved and positive parenting. Concurrent process evaluation and qualitative research are conducted to identify program satisfaction and facilitators and barriers to the implementation. Outcome data are collected immediately after the intervention and six months later. The results will be used to inform a violence prevention strategy in West Java and possible scale up in of the intervention in Indonesia.