Instrument 7: Interviews with curriculum developers

Curriculum Developers’ Interview Guide

Thank you for taking the time to talk with us. My name is [NAME]. I am part of a team that is helping the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation in the Administration for Children and Families understand what kinds of services fatherhood programs offer on healthy romantic and coparenting relationships, how those services help fathers, and how those services might be tailored to better meet the needs of fathers. When we say coparenting relationships, we mean fathers’ relationships with the mother(s) of his children or others who work with the fathers and share responsibility for raising a child. When we say romantic relationships, we mean fathers’ relationships with people they are dating, committed to, or married to, whether they are having sex or not.

As part of this study, we have identified curricula that are being used in fatherhood programs or that might be used to teach fathers about healthy romantic relationships and/or healthy coparenting relationships. I hope to spend the next 30-60 minutes learning more about the curriculum that you developed.

What you say here will be kept private; your name will not be shared or associated with your opinions, and we will not share who participated in these discussions. Your responses will be combined with responses from other curriculum developers we are talking with in any published documents. Additionally, quotes from today may be included in published documents, but the quotes will not be attributed to you or associated with your specific curriculum without your permission.

Have you had a chance to read the consent form [STAFF] sent by email? [WAIT FOR RESPONSE, THEN SAY:] This form covers much of what we just discussed about the goals for this study, how we will protect your privacy, and how we plan to use what we learn for our project. The consent form also has contact information for the study’s Principal Investigator as well as the Institutional Review Board that is in charge of ensuring our study follows certain guidelines regarding participant rights. You can contact them with any comments or concerns about participating in this study.

Because this is a federally-funded project, I have to read a couple of sentences to you before we begin. According to the Paperwork Reduction Act, an agency may not conduct or sponsor, and a person is not required to respond to, a collection of information unless it displays a currently valid OMB control number. The OMB number for the described information collection is [NUMBER] and the expiration date is [DATE]. If you have comments regarding this estimated interview length or any other aspect of this collection of information, including suggestions for reducing the interview length, please send them to Mindy Scott at Child Trends, 7315 Wisconsin Avenue, Suite 1200W, Bethesda, MD 20814; Attn: OMB-PRA [NUMBER].

Do you have any questions before we get started?

Do you agree to participate in this interview?

Do you agree to be recorded?

Do you have any questions before we begin?

Note for interviewer: The purpose of this protocol is to get more information about the curricula used by fatherhood programs to address romantic relationships and coparenting. We will be gathering as much data as possible before these discussions and will be having calls with developers when we feel we need to supplement publicly available curriculum information. Some of these questions may therefore not be relevant to all developers; we will assess what information we already have before conducting the calls.

1. I’d like to start by asking a little about you. In a couple minutes, can you tell me about your background, including your current work and what led you to it? [INTERVIEWER NOTE, we are interested in education, current and past work experience, specific populations worked with]

2. Thank you. The rest of this conversation will focus on [CURRICULUM NAME]. What are the overarching goals of [CURRICULUM NAME]?

   1. Follow up: What are the expected outcomes of the curriculum for participants?

   2. Probe [FOR COPARENTING CURRICULUM]: Does it assume coparenting (as opposed to parallel parenting) is the ultimate goal for parents? By coparenting I mean the relationship between fathers and the mothers of their children or others who work with the fathers and share responsibility for raising a child. By parallel parenting I mean, a situation is which both parents remain engaged in the child’s life but have minimal or no interaction with each other, thus may both parent without having a coparenting relationship.

   3. Follow up: What population/learners is the curriculum intended for? [Probe for: male vs. female, individual vs. couple as the participants, those in a romantic relationship vs. those who are broken up/separated/divorced, specific race/ethnic groups, income groups, ranges of ages, expectant or new parents, etc.]

   4. Follow up: Does the curriculum need to be delivered exactly as developed or do you believe that there is room for adaptation? (e.g., delivering a program for couples with one parent or delivering the curriculum in fewer sessions than intended).

   5. Probe: What would you consider the core components of the curriculum to be? Core components are either content or implementation components you think are essential to the curriculum being successful in order to reach the intended outcomes.

      1. Follow up: How were these core components determined? [IF NEEDED]: Were they developed based on theory, research evidence, or something else?

   6. Probe: Has the program content been adapted to different populations at all? (e.g. to be more relevant to a specific population (i.e., parents who are involved in the criminal justice system) or to include more culturally relevant content)

      1. [IF ADAPTATIONS ALLOWED]: How involved are you in working with programs to adapt their curriculum? [IF INVOLVED]: How does that process typically work? What do you think are the most requested adaptations for fatherhood programs? [IF NOT INVOLVED]: Is there any guidance provided within the curriculum regarding adaptations? [Probe: for example, are there any suggestions of places where adaptations can be made? Or places where adaptations should not be made?]

   7. Probe: Have any evaluations been done testing the effectiveness of the curriculum? If so, what types of evaluations?

3. Now, I’d like to talk about how the curriculum was developed.

   1. [IF NEEDED]: In addition to what we just discussed about identifying core components, was the broader curriculum based on any theories, conceptual models, or prior research? [IF YES]: Tell me more about that.

   2. Who provided input into its content/how was the content decided?

4. [FOR HEALTHY RELATIONSHIP CURRICULA]: How does the curriculum cover or discuss romantic relationships?

   1. Probe: Does it discuss fathers’ current relationships, future relationships, or both (and if so, how)?

   2. Follow up [IF NEEDED]: What kind of content related to romantic relationships does it address?

      1. Probe: Does it address men’s challenges in romantic relationships and how to overcome them?

      2. Probe: Does it address other issues fathers face that are related to their ability to sustain a healthy romantic relationship (e.g., unemployment or underemployment, drug/alcohol use, mental health difficulties)?

      3. Probe: Does it address the importance of healthy romantic relationships for children?

   3. Follow up: How does it handle talking about romantic relationships where violence or extreme conflict is a concern?

   4. Follow up: Does the curriculum require a partner/spouses’ presence?

      1. Follow up [IF YES]: how many sessions are partners/spouses expected to attend? [IF NEEDED]: are they expected to attend all sessions or only specific sessions?

      2. Follow up [IF YES]: Can it be implemented without the partner/spouse present?

   5. Follow up: How does the curriculum fit into a fatherhood program versus a program for parents or couples more generally?

      1. Probe: Are there any updates you think need to be made for the curriculum to be more relevant to fathers?

   6. Follow up: Does the curriculum discuss coparenting?

      1. [IF YES]: How does the curriculum define coparenting? Who is the assumed coparent, if there is one? Is the content specific to coparenting delivered to couples or individual parents? How is coparenting discussed/addressed when the coparent and the romantic partner are different people?

5. [FOR COPARENTING CURRICULA]: How does the curriculum discuss coparenting relationships?

   1. Follow up: How does the curriculum define coparenting?

   2. Follow up: Who are the assumed coparent(s), if there is one (e.g., the child’s mother)?

   3. Follow up [IF NEEDED]: What kind of coparenting related content does the curriculum address?

      1. Probe: Does it address other issues fathers face that are related to their ability to have healthy coparenting relationships (e.g., unemployment/underemployment, child support, drug/alcohol use, mental health difficulties)?

      2. Probe: Does it address different challenges fathers may face in coparenting and how to overcome them?

      3. Probe: Does it address the importance of healthy coparenting relationships for children?

      4. Follow up: How does it handle coparenting relationships where violence or extreme conflict is a concern?

      5. Follow up: Does it address coparenting with different types of coparents (e.g., a father and a grandmother) If so, how?

         1. Does it address coparenting with multiple coparents? If so, how?

      6. Follow up: Does it require a coparents’ presence?

         1. [IF YES]: how many sessions are coparents expected to attend? (If needed) are they expected to attend all sessions or only specific sessions?

         2. [IF YES]: can it be implemented without a coparent present?

   4. Follow up: How does the curriculum fit into a fatherhood program versus a program for parents or couples more generally?

      1. Probe: Are there any updates you think need to be made for the curriculum to be more relevant to fathers?

   5. Follow up: Does the curriculum discuss romantic relationships at all? As a reminder, we define romantic relationships as fathers’ relationships with people they are dating, committed to, or married to, whether they are having sex or not. If so, how?

      1. Probe: Is the content specific to romantic relationships delivered to couples or individuals?

      2. Probe: How are romantic relationships discussed/addressed when the coparent and the romantic partner are different people?

6. [IF NOT KNOWN THROUGH ONLINE SOURCES]: Tell me more about the delivery of [CURRICULUM NAME]:

   1. What kinds of activities do you do to deliver the content?

   2. How many sessions are involved?

   3. How frequently do the participants meet? How long is each session?

   4. What is the ideal setting for implementation, for example, a group setting, class setting, or delivered individually? [Probe for whether it can be delivered in any setting that accommodates this, e.g., in schools, community-based organizations, fatherhood program buildings, etc.]

   5. Who would ideally deliver these sessions?

      1. Probe: Is there a certain level or type of education facilitator needs to implement the curriculum?

   6. What is the recommended number of participants per session?

   7. Is the curriculum available in other languages? If so, which languages?

   8. Do participants receive materials (e.g., handouts or resource sheets) during some or each session(s)? If yes, what are they?

   9. What do you think is most important for successful delivery of the curriculum within a fatherhood program? (For example, the facilitator’s background, rapport-building abilities, fathers attending all sessions)

7. What training is required or recommended for people who will deliver [CURRICULUM NAME]?

   1. Follow up [IF NEEDED]: What is the ideal training for an individual to successfully implement the curriculum?

   2. Follow up [IF NEEDED]: What is the minimum training required for an individual to successfully implement the curriculum?

8. For what populations is [CURRICULUM NAME] typically delivered to (i.e., sociodemographics of participants)?

   1. Probe: Has it been delivered for men/fathers specifically?

   2. Follow up: How has implementation of the curriculum generally been for these groups? Specifically, are there any successes or challenges to note? (If delivered with fathers/men, probe specifically about men/fathers and specific types of men/fathers).

   3. Follow up: To what degree do you follow or track who is using your curriculum? Do you monitor whether groups are using the curriculum with fidelity?

   4. Follow up: In what areas (or with what populations) would you like to see use of the curriculum expanded, if any?

9. [IF NOT KNOWN THROUGH ONLINE SOURCES]: Is a copy of [CURRICULUM NAME] publicly available for us to review? How can people obtain or buy the curriculum?

10. [IF NOT KNOWN THROUGH ONLINE SOURCES]: What version is the most current curriculum? Have you made any edits or changes since the original version? Are there plans to update or change it?

11. Is there anything else that is unique or important about [CURRICULUM NAME] that you think would be helpful for me to know about?

Thank you for your time and attention during this interview. You have provided valuable information.