The Protecting Strong African American Families Program: a Randomized Controlled Trial with Rural African American Couples

This study presents results from a randomized controlled trial of the Protecting Strong African American Families (ProSAAF) program, a family-centered intervention designed to promote strong couple, coparenting, and parent-child relationships in two-parent African American families. A total of 346 African American couples with an early adolescent child participated; all families lived in rural, low-income communities in the southern USA. Intent-to-treat growth curve analyses involving three waves and spanning 17 months indicated that ProSAAF participants, compared with control participants, reported greater improvements in relationship communication, confidence, satisfaction, partner support, coparenting, and parenting. More than 80% of the couples attended all six of the in-home, facilitator-led sessions; costs to implement the program averaged $1739 per family. The findings inform the ongoing debate surrounding prevention programs for low-income and ethnic minority couples.