A Phase 1 interventional study of Parent Skills Training and Protecting Families Program (PFP) in Depression, sponsored by Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Completed at 1 site in United States. Open to participants aged 9 Years and older. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2026-01-09.
Sponsored by Children's Hospital of Philadelphia · Phase 1, Interventional, and Prevention
This study will test the Protecting Families Program, a 10-week prevention program for depressed parents and their pre-teenage children, by comparing the effectiveness of the program versus parent training alone.
Children of depressed parents are at risk for developing social-emotional problems. Despite the fact that economic hardship is a strong risk factor for both maternal depression and poor child development, little research has been conducted to develop prevention programs for low-income urban families. This randomized, open-label study will address the research gap by developing and pilot-testing the Protecting Families Program (PFP), a family-based, multi-component prevention program. The PFP will offer its services to low-income, urban, depressed parents and their children between the ages of 9 and 14.
Prior to the interventional portion of the study, several small focus groups composed of mental-health care providers and depressed parents will meet. The purpose of these focus groups will be to gather information that will help maximize the effectiveness of the remainder of the study. The interventional phase will compare PFP combined with individual parent training versus parent training alone. Participants will be randomly assigned to one of these two intervention groups. The study will last a total of 10 weeks. Both groups will meet once each week. PFP will include a community meal at the beginning of each session, a parent skills training group, and a concurrent cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) group for the focal child. Participants' symptoms, diagnosis, functional status, family functioning, cognitive factors, and parenting practices will be assessed at the study start date, immediately post-intervention, and 6 months post-intervention.
8,057 studies on the registry are indexed under Depression; 1,641 are open to participants now.
This study's enrollment of 42 is below the median of 84 across 6,720 interventional studies indexed under Depression.
Browse Depression studies →Children's Hospital of Philadelphia is the lead sponsor of 480 studies on the registry; 85 are open to participants now.
Of its 28 completed or terminated interventional studies of FDA-regulated products, 22 (79%) have results posted.
Counted across the registry records on this site, refreshed daily.
Exclusion criteria:
Participants will receive the Protecting Families Program with individual parent training
Behavioral: Parent Skills Training · Behavioral: Protecting Families Program (PFP)
Participants will receive parent training alone
Behavioral: Parent Skills Training
Parent skills training will include 10 weeks of psychoeducational and skills training group sessions for parents.
Participants will receive 10 weeks of PFP, which will include a community meal at the beginning of each session, a parent skills training group, and a concurrent cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) group for the focal child.
Child psychiatric symptomology
Time frame: Measured immediately post-treatment and at 6-month follow-up
Parenting skills, family functioning, and parent social support
Time frame: Measured immediately post-treatment and at 6-month follow-up
This study is completed, as verified in Feb 2014. You cannot join it, but the record below documents what was studied.
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Children's Hospital of Philadelphia