Social Validity of the Strengthening Families Program in Northeastern Brazil: the Voices of Parents, Adolescents, and Facilitators.

In 2013, Brazil's Ministry of Health adopted the Strengthening Families Program (SFP 10-14), developed internationally for preventing drug abuse by enhancing family bonds. The social validity of the objectives, procedures, and perceived impacts of the program were investigated for participants and facilitators in northeastern Brazil. Focus groups with parents/guardians (N = 199), adolescents (N = 111), and facilitators (N = 100) were implemented. Content analysis revealed that the program's objectives were considered socially relevant and that there was a positive short-term perceived impact on family cohesion, authoritative parenting style, adolescent life skills, and the facilitators' professional capacity. The parents/guardians and adolescents presented a positive perception of the appropriateness of the program's methodology, while facilitators indicated the need to adapt it to vulnerable families and improve its implementation conditions. Future studies may benefit from these findings when developing similarly viable and scalable interventions in low-resource settings. Brazilian Trial Register RBR-7q9xh5. Registered 5 August 2017, http://www.ensaiosclinicos.gov.br/rg/RBR-7q9xh5/.

Efficacy of a bystander intervention for preventing dating violence in Brazilian adolescents: short-term evaluation.

Peers are the preferred source of help for Brazilian adolescents who experience dating violence. However, they are not always the best informants for effective responses for dealing with situations of violence in romantic relationships among peers. This experimental study aimed to evaluate the short-term efficacy of three aspects of a peer- and bystander approach-based intervention: the intent to offer help, empathy, and bystander attitudes in response to dating violence in a Brazilian sample of adolescents. The study's participants were 33 adolescents randomized in two groups: experimental group (EG, n = 14) and control group (CG, n = 19). The EG underwent three weekly intervention sessions of 90 min each on the healthy versus violent romantic relationships, the quality of friendship in the peer network, and the role of the bystander, while the CG received no intervention. Evaluations were performed 1 week before and two and half months after the intervention. Statistically significant differences between EG and CG at post-test were not found in intention to help, empathy, and bystander attitudes. Future studies should include evaluations of larger samples and mid- and long-term follow-ups to identify patterns of change over the long term as well as examine barriers to utilization of bystander behaviors by adolescents in Brazilian culture.