Protocol of a mixed-method feasibility, acceptability, and appropriateness trial of the Bright Tomorrows Parenting app in engaging parents of young children aged 0-5 years, in brain-building activities

Description of the app: The Bright Tomorrows Parenting app was created to fill a critical niche in the Australian early childhood landscape of evidence-based, multi-generational, positive parenting apps The app was co-designed with parents, child development experts, educators, and service providers as a translation-science platform that brings the science of ‘brain-building basics’ out of the laboratory directly to the fingertips of Australian parents and other professionals that are part of a family’s daily life. The app is housed within a larger set of tools and resources (website, factsheet, videos, https://www.brighttomorrows.org.au/) designed to inspire families to transform their daily interactions with their children into “brain building shared moments”. The Bright Tomorrows Parenting app aims to strengthen parents and their children’s essential life skills (encompassing socioemotional wellbeing and executive function, EF processes), build parent knowledge of child development, attitude towards and skills to engage in positive parenting practices, and self-efficacy to improve their children’s learning, development, and care, whilst simultaneously motivating them to engage in self-care practices and access available support services The key features of the app include: • A video to introduce viewers to the app and explain its purpose and a series of pop-up videos that explain the various categories of essential life skills and their importance in the context of nurturing and responsive parent-child interactions for healthy brain development in young children • Family tab: To sign into the app and create parent and associated children’s profiles. Users are guided through creating their profile, adding children, prioritising areas of parenting interest or concern, and monitoring progress: • A unique tailoring system for activities, precisely personalised to the app user through details provided in their profile, including their child’s name, age, and priorities for learning • An information library with over 1000 fun and interactive, ‘in-the-moment brain-building activities’ (referred to as Moments) and associated parenting tips (A Tip for You) to build essential life skills of the parent-child dyad and foster positive parenting practices. Moments are organised in the app’s wireframe by child age, type of essential life skill it is designed to develop, and place and time to use it. Essential life skill categories include: Attention and focus; Responding to emotions; Relationships and communication; Planning and routines; and Taking on challenges. Moments use action-oriented prompts while recommending fun and interactive activities that can be easily incorporated into a busy family’s daily routine (e.g., Bathtime Sing-a-long, Laundry load, Food finder, etc…). A typical Moment can be implemented within 1-2 minutes without additional preparation, resources, or toys. • Each ‘Moment’ has an explanation of the science behind each activity and how it supports children’s brain development and essential life skills (i.e., the ‘Brainy Background’, powered by Vroom) and gives the user the opportunity to favourite it. • Alongside each Moment is a tip for building the adult’s life skills housed in the A Tip for You section. • A Growth (parent course) section to provide more comprehensive support to parents in developing essential life skills, both for themselves and their child. Each growth course contains moments, brain background and parenting tips and allows for tailored goal setting. To date, BTPA has 5-growth courses that focus on Finding calm, Sleep routine, Reading with my child, Getting active with my child, and Daily routine. This section of the app is currently under development. • Support tab that directs parents to the web page or telephone line of various social and health supports in the community • Notifications that act as an appropriately timed ‘nudge’ to encourage users to engage with the app • Gamification to encourage parents’ engagement with the different components of the app, including badges awarded for completion of Moments. Participation in the 8-week trial involved the following Prior to the trial users: • Complete a 15-minute online survey following online consent, capturing family demographics, relationship with their child, and parenting beliefs. Following survey completion, participants are welcomed to the study and provided with a link to the onboarding video. During the trial users: • Engage with the Bright Tomorrows Parenting app with their child over 8-weeks. • Over the 8-week trial, participants are requested to: • complete 2-new moments with their child at least 2-4 times a week; selecting moments ahead of their regular daily routines, e.g., bath time, playtime, or getting them dressed • enrol in at least one growth course: around 2-4 weeks in duration, focusing on managing stress, morning routines and behaviour management etc. • familiarise themselves with the app's support section, which connects them to various social and health supports in the community. • respond to in-app strength-based notifications to support engagement in the trial • Over the 8-week trial, researchers collect information on participants’ app usage - including, the number of times they used the app and for how long, what activities and courses they completed, and their satisfaction ratings with the completed activities. After the trial, users: • Complete a 15-minute online post-trial survey. In addition to pre-trial questions, users will rate the usability and satisfaction of the Bright Tomorrows app • Participate in (an optional) 30-minute interview to discuss and understand the context surrounding their use of the Bright Tomorrows Parenting app with their child, their thoughts, and experiences in using the app, and ideas to improve the app. The interview will be conducted online at a time suitable to the participant and audio recorded to allow for detailed thematic analyses of transcripts to be conducted. Adherence will be monitored via in-app data analytics; 4-week mid-point SMS; and post-trial survey and interview