# The Friend to Friend Program: Effectiveness when Conducted by School Staff

> **NIH NIH R01** · CHILDREN'S HOSP OF PHILADELPHIA · 2022 · $590,425

## Abstract

ABSTRACT
The proposed study is in direct response to two gaps in school-based aggression prevention programming and
research. First, there are very few culturally-sensitive relational aggression prevention programs with
documented success among high-risk urban minority girls and their classmates despite clear evidence that
these behaviors negatively impact girls' social and emotional health and the broader classroom environment.
Second, when such programming is conducted, it is often led by externally funded facilitators in the context of
a research grant, which does not equip school staff with skills to run the program and makes it exceedingly
difficult for schools to sustain programming efforts after research funding has ended. This is particularly
concerning in urban schools where aggressive students are often referred to counselors who typically do not
have the training and/or resources available for a proactive or systematic response. To address these gaps,
this proposal is grounded in the Friend to Friend Program, which was initially designed through an iterative
partnership-based research process uniquely for 3rd-5th grade minority relationally aggressive girls in urban
schools. Friend to Friend was proven effective through a clinical trial for decreasing relational aggression and
improving problem-solving and leadership of relationally aggressive girls with effects maintained one year later,
and for producing broader positive effects on aggression and student-teacher relationships for the classmates
of the aggressive girls. In the trial, Friend to Friend was conducted by research staff, and no schools continued
the program when the study ended. Therefore, preliminary studies were conducted to translate Friend to
Friend from researcher-led to school-led with coaching from the research team to address the imperative need
to build the capacity of schools to run programs on their own in an effective and sustainable way. As such, the
primary goal of this proposal is to examine for the first time the effectiveness of Friend to Friend with Coaching,
as conducted by teachers and counselors with active coaching from the research team. Through a cluster
randomized control trial including 40 urban schools, 20 schools will be randomly assigned to the F2F with
Coaching intervention and 20 control schools will follow standard school practice of referring aggressive youth
to the counselor. We will examine indicated and universal effects for students and self-efficacy of school staff
for intervening with relational aggressors. In addition, theoretical advances will be made by exploratory goals
related to understanding mediators and moderators of program success. Further, we will also explore the
effectiveness of Friend to Friend with Coaching the following year when minimal coaching is provided, as well
as the facilitators and barriers of program adoption by school staff. Collectively, this study will demonstrate the
effectiveness of school-led Friend to...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10337079
- **Project number:** 5R01HD094833-04
- **Recipient organization:** CHILDREN'S HOSP OF PHILADELPHIA
- **Principal Investigator:** STEPHEN S LEFF
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $590,425
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2019-02-01 → 2025-01-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10337079

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10337079, The Friend to Friend Program: Effectiveness when Conducted by School Staff (5R01HD094833-04). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10337079. Licensed CC0.

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