The applicant is requesting five years of funding through the Mentored Career Development Award (K01) in order to transition from his substantive training and experience in adolescent risk behavior and drug abuse research to a more comprehensive focus on organization factors in mental health services for youth with co-morbid disorders. The proposed transition is a direct outgrowth of this pre-doctoral training in clinical and industrial/organizational psychology and this post-doctoral experience in youth mental health services research. The ultimate goal is to have the expertise to offer empirically supported recommendations for improving youth mental health services through organizational change. The applicant's strong background of academic, research, and clinical training in youth mental health, substance use disorders, psychopathology, statistics and research design, and industrial/organizational psychology, provides an excellent foundation for the proposed activities. The training goals outlined below will enhance the applicant's knowledge base in child and adolescent mental health services, inter-organizational services coordination, and intra-organizational issues, and multi-level longitudinal modeling techniques. Completion of this additional training will prepare the applicant to pursue a research career examining organizational factors that may impact clinical effectiveness of interventions for youth co- morbid mental disorders receiving services in """"""""real world"""""""" settings. The research plan for this award complements the proposed training goals by examining changes in inter-organizational services coordination in Study 1, and concomitant relationships of organizational climate, service quality, clinical service outcomes, and adolescent and parent satisfaction with services in Study 2. The proposed study will prospectively examine a youth service system in transition, through governance and community- based initiatives attempting to create a more coordinated and responsive youth service system. The research project will include agencies serving adolescents (ages 12-18) representing those most commonly used by youth with co-morbid disorders.
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