The Latino Youth and Family Empowerment Study - III (LYFE-III): bringing to Scale a Culturally-Adapted and Evidence-Based Intervention for Latino Families

The Latino Youth and Family Empowerment Study‐III (LYFE‐III) is designed to adapt andpilot test Nuestras Familias: Andando Entre Culturas, a culturally adapted,evidence‐based parenting intervention for Latino families. Nuestras Familias integratesprinciples from parent management training, social learning theory, and ecodevelopmentaltheory. The program is intended to strengthen parenting practices that may protectagainst mental and behavioral health problems among Latino youth.The study consists of two stages. During the first stage, the existing intervention willbe adapted from a group‐based, in‐person format to a self‐guided online format. Thedigital program will preserve the intervention's core parenting components while makingthe content more accessible and reducing the time and logistical demands associated withattending in‐person sessions. Latino parents and community stakeholders will participatein an iterative user‐centered refinement process to evaluate the program's culturalrelevance, usability, clarity, and technological accessibility. Feedback from successivefocus groups will be used to revise and finalize the digital intervention and itsaccompanying online manual.The digital intervention will address parental involvement, monitoring, positivereinforcement and skill encouragement, appropriate and consistent discipline, familycommunication, and family problem solving. It will also address experiences relevant toLatino families, including familismo, respeto, parent‐youth differences in acculturation,family and gender roles, language barriers, discrimination, and structural barriersaffecting families. Program content will include brief presentations, demonstrations andvideo‐based role plays, interactive activities, summaries of key concepts, andopportunities for parents to practice parenting strategies at home. Parents will proceedthrough the program sequentially and will receive access to new content on a weeklybasis. An online discussion forum, periodic program‐related messages, progress tracking,and contact with the research team will be used to support engagement.During the second stage, the refined intervention will be evaluated in a randomized pilottrial. Participating families will be randomly assigned to receive either the LYFE‐IIIonline parenting intervention or services as usual through the collaborating communityorganization. Families assigned to services as usual will retain access to theorganization's customary resources but will not receive LYFE‐III during the trial. Theywill be offered access to the intervention after completion of study activities.Parents and youth will complete online assessments before the intervention, at the end ofthe approximately four‐month intervention period, and three months after the interventionends. The pilot is intended to evaluate the feasibility, acceptability, appropriateness,engagement, and initial promise of delivering the culturally adapted intervention online.It will also estimate intervention‐related changes in parenting practices and youthmental and behavioral health and examine whether changes in parenting practices areassociated with subsequent changes in youth outcomes. Findings will be used to refine theintervention and its implementation procedures and to inform a future, larger‐scaleeffectiveness trial.