Transforming skills to resist racism: A pilot study of the feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary effectiveness...

The exposure and impact of racism are a critical issue among historically marginalized youth of color that requires targeted interventions. The goal of this paper is to examine initial feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary effectiveness from a school-based intervention pilot study designed to increase awareness and skills to combat the consequences of racism, in all forms, among adolescents from Black, Native, Asian, Latine, and other historically marginalized communities. TRANSFORM is an 11-session group-based intervention. Fifteen youth (M_age = 15.3 years old, SD_age = 1.8 years old; 53% boys) comprised three student groups across three schools from the same region that participated in the study. Feasibility was assessed based on students' attendance and audio fidelity ratings; acceptability was examined based on students' self-report satisfaction questions, and preliminary effectiveness was assessed via youths' pre- and post-quantitative assessments along with focus group data on students' perceived benefits of participating in the intervention. TRANSFORM was deemed acceptable and feasible to the majority of participants. Preliminary effectiveness findings suggest that youths' ethnic-racial pride and self-efficacy skills to respond to racism significantly increased from pre- to post-intervention assessment and may extend beyond the individual to the collective. Additionally, youth reported several benefits of the intervention: processing "true feelings" in community, scaffolding tools and cognition to combat racism, increasing problem-solving skills, developing multi-racial solidarities, and improving responses to stress. Findings support the initial pilot feasibility, acceptability, and effectiveness of the intervention and provide useful participant feedback. Implications for school-based interventions focused on disrupting the perpetuation and impact of racism will be discussed.