Family therapy has emerged as one of the most efficacious interventions for child and adolescent behavioral and psychiatric issues such a Conduct Disorder and Substance Use Disorders and for chronic health conditions such as cancer and Alzheimer?s. However, widespread implementation of family therapy is often hampered by high training costs, re-training needs following staff turnover, low agency readiness to support new practices, and training strategies that lack ongoing implementation support or do so in ways that are prohibitively expensive. To address this need our company will utilize a web-based Family Therapy Training and Implementation Platform (FTTIP). FTTIP?s innovation is that it: 1) is guided by the Simpson Program Change Model focusing on organizational readiness to inform the readiness consultation and online supervisor and agency leader coaching/consultation; 2) uses adaptive training and consultation processes that provide a dynamic and data- driven procedure in which a competency is taught, measured, and the success or failure of the learning informs the next step of training in real time; and 3) uses technology and an online platform that provides the capabilities to fully benefit from an adaptive training and consultation process, a reverse classroom strategy with more options for active learning, and long-distance work that reduces cost. Phase I research objectives will focus on customization of the platform, user interface, and adaptation of training and consultation content; on increasing the agency?s readiness for family therapy training and implementation; showing significant improvement in counselor family therapy competencies; and documenting feasibility and acceptability. The Phase I study will also include a small-scale Training as Usual (TAU) comparison condition that will allow us to generate a preliminary estimate of effect size within each of the conditions (FTTIP and TAU). These effect sizes can be used in the power analysis needed for the Phase II study and will allow us to estimate delivery cost differences as well. The Phase I outcomes set the stage for a fully-powered multisite Phase II Randomized Controlled Trial that can investigate whether FTTIP is superior to ?Traditional Face-to-Face Training? on all key domains, including trainee, supervisor, agency and client outcomes. FTTIP will be attractive to healthcare delivery systems because it will be more effective than traditional (face-to-face) training methods, better address the service providers? readiness barriers that often are not identified or addressed, and will provide ongoing consultation and counselor support during the difficult implementation phase.
The proposed family training and implementation platform will help to close the gap between research-tested interventions and their widespread use by incorporating recent advances in implementation science, adaptive training methods, and technology that facilitates the use of innovative strategies. This innovation is especially significant given that family therapy is considered one of the most efficacious interventions for child and adolescent behavioral and mental health problems such as Conduct Disorder and Substance Use Disorders, and for families with serious health conditions such as cancer and Alzheimer?s. If successful the platform can significantly impact public health by making family therapy training and high-quality implementation less costly and more effective.
