Hard to reach families—A methodological approach to early recognition, recruitment, and randomization in an intervention study

Evaluation of early childcare and education (ECCE) programs faces the problem that families who would have a high need for prevention do often not participate in such programs. Moreover, in intervention studies, regular assessments for research purposes and the lack of intervention in the control group reduce participation.Against this background we present a concept for the recruitment of families in psychosocial at-risk situations in a randomized controlled trial (RCT) using the example of the ZEPPELIN 0-3 project.Results show that the projected number of 252 recruited families was reached and that randomization was successful regarding crucial characteristics.