'Mind the Kids': an ACAMH podcast · The Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health

Mind the Kids - Engaging Dads: The Power of Online Parenting Interventions

·30 min·1 clip

Family Man improved parent-reported child conduct problems, and the gains held at two months.

1. ACAM Learn’s Mind the Kids episode focuses on the ACAMH and Movember project around Family Man, an online father-inclusive parenting intervention for child conduct problems. 2. Mark Tebbs hosts, Dr. Lucy Tully is the lead author and senior lecturer at the University of Sydney, and Simon Rice leads the Movember Institute of Men's Health. 3. The episode asks whether a brief, self-directed, father-friendly program can improve conduct problems for Australian families with children aged 3 to 9 years. 4. Lucy says she has worked for over 20 years in child mental health and evidence-based parenting interventions through the Child Behaviour Research Clinic. 5. She ties the case for early intervention to the claim that half of mental health problems start before age 14 and many begin by age five. 6. Lucy describes conduct problems as temper tantrums, non-compliance, and aggression that range from normal “terrible twos and threes” behavior to more severe and persistent difficulties. 7. She says around 5% to 10% of children in the community have conduct problems at the moderate to severe end. 8. She cites the Dunedin Longitudinal Study in New Zealand as evidence that childhood conduct problems can contribute to later depression, anxiety, school dropout, and crime. 9. Lucy says parenting programs are considered the gold standard treatment and reports that about two thirds of children improve when parents participate. 10. She explains that traditional programs often run 8 to 10 sessions and can stretch to 20 or 30 sessions, which creates dropout and access problems for busy families. 11. Lucy describes a 1,000-father survey in which cost was the most frequently rated barrier, alongside work commitments and lack of awareness of available programs. 12. She says a 200-practitioner survey found barriers such as fathers lacking time, discomfort with help-seeking, and beliefs that parenting is “a mother’s role.” 13. Simon says Family Man was built to engage men through its name, design, look, and feel, so fathers can see it as something made for them. 14. Lucy says the program uses animation, father characters, and a choose-your-own-adventure format to show what happens after different parenting choices. 15. She says the whole program is three episodes long, each takes less than 20 minutes, and the full course can be done in under an hour. 16. Lucy reports that the trial recruited 103 families Australia-wide through social media, preschools, and the Child Behaviour Research Clinic over about six months. 17. She says the study had to hide the program name in advertising because Family Man was already freely available, and more than 80% of available fathers still participated through mothers’ prompting. 18. Lucy reports significant improvements in parent-reported child conduct problems, maintained at two-month follow-up, with no different outcome pattern for mothers and fathers. 19. The episode has an interview format with detailed back-and-forth questioning, and both guests speak in a measured, practical tone about research and implementation. 20. Parents of 3- to 9-year-olds, child mental health practitioners, and researchers interested in father engagement would get the most from this episode. 21. Listeners looking for celebrity stories, entertainment, or a short casual chat about parenting would probably skip it.

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