Family Check-Up® supports strategies to better engage parents and parent-centered intervention for reducing problem behaviors in children from toddlers through adolescence. Research shows this model:
Lowers the likelihood of early-adolescent substance use in the form of cigarettes, alcohol, and marijuana.
- Participation in Family Check-Up® lowers children’s probability of early-adolescent drug use due to improved parental monitoring practices [Dishion, T. J., Nelson, S. E., & Kavanagh, K. (2003). The Family Check-Up with High-Risk Young Adolescents: Preventing Early-Onset Substance Use by Parent Monitoring. Behavioral Therapy, 34(4), 553-571. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0005-7894(03)80035-7]
- Participation in Family Check-Up® increases children’s abilities to self-regulate their emotions, thoughts, and behaviors, which reduces antisocial behavior, involvement with deviant peers, and tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana use [Fosco, G. M., Frank, J. L., Stormshak, E. A., & Dishion, T. J. (2013). Opening the “Black Box”: Family Check-Up Intervention Effects on Self-Regulation that Prevents Growth in Problem Behavior and Substance Use. Journal of School Psychology, 51(4), 455-468. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsp.2013.02.001]
Reduces the risk of suicide among adolescents and prevents oppositional behavior during early childhood from developing into more severe behavioral disorders later in life.
- Family Check-Up® participation prevents oppositional behavior during early childhood from developing into more severe behavioral disorders later in life [Dishion, T. J., Brennan, L. M., Shaw, D. S., McEachern, A. D., Wilson, M. N., & Jo, B. (2014). Prevention of Problem Behavior through Annual Family Check-Ups in Early Childhood: Intervention Effects from Home to Early Elementary School. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 42(3), 343-354. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-013-9768-2]
- Family Check-Up® participation is associated with a decrease in depressive symptoms and family conflict, as well as lower rates of major depressive disorder [Fosco, G. M., Frank, J. L., Stormshak, E. A., & Dishion, T. J. (2013). Opening the “Black Box”: Family Check-Up Intervention Effects on Self-Regulation that Prevents Growth in Problem Behavior and Substance Use. Journal of School Psychology, 51(4), 455-468. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsp.2013.02.001]
- Participation in Family Check-Up® reduces risk of suicide among adolescents and young adults [Connell, A. M., McKillop, H. N., & Dishion, T. J. (2016). Long‐Term Effects of the Family Check‐Up in Early Adolescence on Risk of Suicide in Early Adulthood. Suicide and Life‐Threatening Behavior, 46(1), 1-10. https://doi.org/10.1111/sltb.12254]
Family Check-Up® serves families in Allegheny County.