Delivering in-person interventions online during the COVID-19 pandemic: lessons learned

The COVID-19 pandemic necessitated unprecedented programmatic changes in interventions and service settings as in-person activities moved online. Exemplifying this broader pattern, the Substance Use, Prevention, and Education Research (SUPER) project moved two in-person interventions (Botvin Life Skills Training [LST] and Positive Parenting Program [Triple P]) online. The current manuscript outlines lessons learned from this transition to online implementation. Lessons focus on strategies to increase and improve school and participant recruitment, participant attendance and engagement, program implementation fidelity, and data collection. The pandemic impeded recruitment and required intensified efforts (e.g., going door to door, contacting multiple agencies). Further, because maintaining attendance in online programs can be difficult, offering attendance incentives is helpful. In addition, to address participants’ hesitance to engage in online activities, we advise allowing for flexibility in online communication and allowing participants to keep their cameras off and microphones muted if desired, but encouraging them to participate through the chat feature of Zoom. Training implementation staff in online implementation strategies and providing ongoing support by trained professionals is also vital to increasing recruitment and engagement. Finally, although certain features of in-person programs may need to be altered when shifting to an online implementation setting, it is important to ensure these changes do not impact the fidelity of the program. Included suggestions can be used to enhance the online delivery of programs and improve participant outcomes.