Cris Sullivan - US grants

DESCRIPTION (Applicant's Abstract): Prior research has suggested that children exposed to domestic violence are at increased risk for numerous and psychological problems. However, children's resilience has been found to be positively affected by a number of variables, including mother's well-being, the presence of a mentor in their lives, and participation in domestic violence support and education groups. Therefore, the proposed study was designed to examine the effectiveness of an intensive, community-based intervention, provided to half the randomly assigned study participants. The experimental intervention is based on two prior successful interventions of the principal investigator's, one with abused women, and one with abused women and their children. The intervention will be provided to families free of charge, will last four months, and involves three major components: (1) advocacy and support for mothers and the children; (3) developing or enhancing a positive, mentoring relationship between each child and a significant adult in their lives; and (4) providing a 12-week support and education group for the children. Multi-method, multi-source strategies will be used to measure the variables of interest. The following hypotheses are posed to guide the research agenda. (a) Children who with paraprofessional advocates will show 1) improved psychological and behavioral adjustment--increased self-competence, reduced depression, fewer problem behavior; 2) greater ability to cope with domestic violence-- reduced self-blame, clearer safety plans, awareness of domestic violence warning signs, less use of violence as a coping strategy, less acceptance of violence from others; 3) improved school attendance and academic achievement, and 4) increased quantity and quality of contact with positive adult mentors. (b) Mothers in the experimental condition will show 1) increased access to community resources and increased ability to continue to access needed resources; 2) increased social support; and 3) an increased repertoire of positive parenting skills. Further, it is anticipated that 4) improvements in these concrete resources will lead to improvements in mothers' psychological well-being (improved quality of life, decreased depression, and reduced parenting stress). (c) Improvements in mothers' outcomes (e.g., resources, social support, parenting skills, psychological well-being) will partially mediate the effects of the advocacy intervention on the children's psychological and behavioral adjustment (increased self-competence, reduced depression, fewer problem behaviors). All intervention effects are expected to persist over time. In addition to the central hypotheses about the intervention, we will examine the impact on children's outcomes of several variales thought to moderate children's adjustment and resilience over time.

[unreadable] DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The NIH/NIMH "Bridging Science and Service" report recommends supporting collaborative partnerships between academic researchers and public care systems as a way to fuse mental health research with mental health practice. PA 04-015, the "Interventions and Practice Research Infrastructure Program" IP- RISP, resulted from that report. It specifically seeks to "foster an active, synergistic partnership between mental health researchers and community-based, clinical/services staff, clinicians and patients/clients to: (1) advance our knowledge about developing research infrastructure in community settings and the establishment of collaborative partnerships; (2) identify and incorporate those factors (e.g., organizational, sociocultural, interpersonal) in community settings that may be associated with quality care and optimal outcomes for patients and clients; and (3) test adapted, evidence-based interventions (treatment, rehabilitative, and preventive) in community settings." The current application aims to address all three of these goals in collaboration with a community-based, specialty care agency serving female victims of domestic or sexual violence. Violence against women is a pervasive social problem, often resulting in severe mental health consequences for its victims. The purpose of this R24 IP-RISP application, then, is to collaborate with a well- established domestic violence-rape crisis mental health services organization to develop a research infrastructure in a community setting that is supportive of collaborative research on mental health services for battered women and rape victims. This application has 4 specific aims: (1) Develop a research infrastructure that supports conducting community-based mental health services research pertaining to violence against women. (2) Develop a community based, specialty care agency's infrastructure to enhance their capacity to engage in collaborative research. (3) Test an evidence-based intervention in a community-based agency setting. (4) Systematically evaluate an integrated model of the collaborative research process. Within these aims five studies will be conducted. The achievement of these aims will result in a community-based research infrastructure able to support and sustain a wide variety of research studies pertaining to the mental health consequences of intimate and sexual violence. Further, the empirically assessed model of collaborative research will be made available to other researchers seeking to bridge mental health research and practice. [unreadable] [unreadable] [unreadable]