PolicyLab

“Family-School Success” (FSS) is an efficacious intervention improving the home and school functioning of children with ADHD in grades 2–6. An extension of this intervention designed for a younger population also showed positive effects for kindergarten and first grade students in a pilot study. Following the completion of these trials, FSS was implemented in a fee-for-service tertiary care ADHD center. The implementation process included adapting the manual and treatment procedures to be feasible outside the structure and support of a federally funded randomized control trial (RCT). The current study examines the process of adapting the treatment protocol and examines the acceptability and effectiveness of the adapted FSS, as well as predictors of family treatment response including parent engagement in treatment (as measured by attendance and homework adherence). A case study illustrates the adaptations to the intervention and its implementation in the clinic-based setting. In line with findings from clinical trials, families reported high satisfaction with the adapted FSS intervention and showed significant improvement in parental self-efficacy, child academic homework performance, and reduction in child impairment. Additionally, as in the initial FSS RCT, parental attendance in the adapted FSS program predicted child attention to academic homework, controlling for parental adherence to between-session homework. Furthermore, controlling for attendance at FSS sessions, parent adherence to between-session homework assignments predicted improvements in parent self-efficacy as well as child’s homework productivity. These results replicate those of the original RCT and confirm that both session attendance and between-session homework completed are important for improvement during the program. Overall, this study provides support for the acceptability and effectiveness of this treatment model and suggests that future work toward dissemination to community-based settings would be worthwhile.