Friend to friend: A randomized trial for urban African American relationally aggressive girls.

Abstract

Objective: To determine the effectiveness of the Friend to Friend (F2F) aggression intervention through a clinical trial with urban African American girls. Method: A randomized parallel-group study design was conducted comparing the effectiveness of F2F to an attention control condition (called Homework Study Skills and Organization, HSO) among relationally aggressive girls from six urban low-income elementary schools. Analyses of covariance were utilized for comparing post-test measurement between the two conditions while adjusting for pre-test measurement. For those outcomes with significant intervention effects between the two conditions at post-test, we examined whether the effects were maintained from post-test to follow-up among girls in the F2F group. Results: Results suggest that aggressive girls in F2F decreased their levels of relational aggression and increased their knowledge of social problem solving skills as compared to similar girls randomized to HSO, both of which were maintained at the one-year follow up. Conclusion: Programs developed through extensive partnership-based approaches, such as the F2F Program, may have promise for addressing the needs of urban high-risk girls in an acceptable and culturally-sensitive manner.

The Broader Impact of Friend to Friend (F2F)

“…The results on the full sample mirrored the analyses on the 665 classroom participants. Additional results for the indicated girls can be seen in a recent study (Leff et al, 2015). …”

“…There are a number of possible explanations for why F2F not only has an impact on relationally aggressive girls (Leff et al, 2015) but also a broader impact on non-targeted students’ prosocial and aggressive behaviors as well as their relationships with their teachers. It could be that when the indicated girls improve their behaviors through the program, this allows teachers to direct more of their time and energy toward others students, thereby creating more opportunities to develop stronger relationships with other students, and especially with boys within their classrooms.…”

“…Furthermore, F2F demonstrated effectiveness in reducing aggression at the classroom level for non-targeted students, and also for affecting factors that are important to positive teaching climate, such as increased prosocial behaviors and stronger teacher-student relationships. A future direction for this line of research would be to examine the cost-effectiveness of F2F given that it appears to have an impact on targeted aggressive girls (Leff et al, 2015), as well as on non-targeted girls and boys.…”

“…Recently, a randomized parallel-group study design was conducted comparing the effectiveness of F2F with an attention control condition (called Homework, Study Skills, and Organization, HSO) among relationally aggressive girls from six urban low-income elementary schools (Leff et al, 2015). HSO was designed through CBPR (Community-Based Participatory Research) to be an educational intervention to help students learn better homework habits and stronger study and organizational skills.…”

Cyberbullying prevention: Insight and recommendations from youths, parents, and paediatricians

“…Interventionists must understand existing beliefs before effectively motivating changes in behaviour. Specifically, programmes that are designed through key stakeholder feedback have shown promise for reducing in‐person bullying and victimization as well as relational aggression (Leff et al, ; Perkins, Craig, & Perkins, ).…”