Chairs: Brian Gillis, PhD, LMFT; Ben Hinnant, PhD

Description: 
In recent years, new sleep interventions using different approaches and target populations have been developed to improve the sleep of children and families. In this symposium, clinicians and researchers will present approaches and findings related to four novel sleep interventions.

Dr. Chung will share insights from the development of her mobile app that will support Black caregivers of preschool-aged children sleep better via evidence-based strategies that promote bedtime routines. Her home-based solution will engage caregivers with parenting strategies that are responsive to the family’s needs and bedtime goals. She will share results on children’s behavioral sleep problems and caregivers’ challenges from her pilot study and discuss results from mixed-methods data collection of primary interviews and surveys among 30 caregivers. Lastly, she will share feedback from human-centered design sessions and UX design approaches that aid in developing tailored solutions.

Next, Dr. Alfano will present findings on the acceptability and feasibility of Sleep and Adjustment in Foster Environments (SAFE), a brief, trauma informed sleep intervention for children who spend time in foster care. Dr. Alfano’s team has previously shown SAFE to be efficacious in improving sleep among 2- to 5-year old children in or adopted from foster care. Currently, they are testing the efficacy, acceptability, and feasibility of SAFE among 6- to 10-year old children adopted from foster care. Dr. Alfano will first describe how SAFE was developed and adapted for use with older children and their caregivers. Next, she will present data from N=65 caregivers regarding the acceptability and feasibility of SAFE.

In the third talk, Dr. Levenson will present on a brief, scalable Sleep Promotion Program (SPP) for depressed adolescents that is currently being delivered and tested in pediatric primary care. Dr. Levenson will first describe the adaptation of the SPP to suit adolescents with clinical levels of depression and the translation of the SPP for implementation in pediatric primary care. She will then describe the feasibility, acceptability, and initial impact of the SPP on sleep and depression as tested via open trial (N=8). Findings will include a description of the iterative refinement of the SPP program and implementation in pediatric primary care, per participant and staff feedback.

Finally, Dr. Gillis will describe the Good Nights Sleep Program (GNSP), a sleep intervention for both parents and children that has been pilot-tested in a low-income community sample. In GNSP, parent-child dyads select one sleep environment element and one sleep hygiene behavior that they commit to modifying for two weeks following baseline assessments and a conversation about current sleep successes and needs. Dr. Gillis will highlight results from GNSP’s randomized controlled trial (N=13 families), which demonstrated efficacy of the program. Compared to control families, parents and children receiving the intervention had earlier bedtimes, longer sleep duration, higher sleep efficiency, and greater sleep regularity, all measured through actigraphy.

Together, findings of the four programs show that clinicians and researchers can improve pediatric sleep through interventions that account for the unique needs of youth in various contexts.