Saving a seat at the table for community members: co-creating an attachment-based intervention for low-income latinx parent-youth dyads using a promotor/a model

Abstract

Evidence for the effectiveness of attachment-based interventions in improving youth’s socioemotional health increases each year, yet potential for scalability of existing programs is limited. Available programs may have lower acceptability within low-income immigrant communities. Co-designing and implementing interventions with trained community workers (promotores) offers an appealing solution to multiple challenges, but community workers must have high investment in the program for this to be a workable solution. This study examines the experiences of promotores involved in the co-creation and delivery of an attachment-based intervention program for low-income Latinx youth (ages 8 to 17) and their mothers. Promotores (N=8) completed surveys, reporting on the experiences of each therapy group in terms of group dynamic (e.g., promotores’ connectedness to each group, perceived program relevance). Following the completion of the intervention study, promotores participated in interviews in which they described their experiences in co-creating the intervention, delivering the intervention to the community, and their recommendations for improving the intervention. Overall, promotores perceived group dynamics as positive, though the mother groups were evaluated as significantly higher in quality (e.g., lower conflict) than the youth groups. Interviews revealed that promotores enjoyed the co-creation process and identified important areas for improvements for the intervention (incorporation of more visuals, creation of age-limited groups, reducing number of youth sessions) and evaluation (reduction in length, modification of language). Integrating input from promotores in the process of co-creating and implementing an intervention can benefit every member of the community from the program participants to the providers themselves.

Keywords

• Attachment
• intervention
• promotor model
• Latinx
• community-based participatory research.