Despite changes in child welfare laws designed to shorten stays in foster care, the number of children in the system has grown. As their numbers swell, so too does the disproportionate amount of resources they consume. Evidence indicates that children in the foster care system constitute a major public health issue as they have been found to have social and emotional problems at rates three to ten times greater than children in the general population and are significantly at-risk for having adverse outcomes that continue into adulthood. Despite these documented difficulties, relatively little research has targeted school-age children's time in the foster care system as a potential period of therapeutic change. This gap in past research suggests that specialized interventions, designed to be sustainable within the child welfare system and tailored and tested to fit the needs of specific age groups, are the next step in the future of foster care-based interventions research. This Mentored Patient-Oriented Research Career Development Award will support the candidate in becoming a productive, independent mental health interventions investigator for school-age children in foster care. The proposal includes intensive cross-disciplinary mentoring by prominent researchers in the areas of foster care, health services, randomized clinical trial methodology, and relational assessment. Detailed formal coursework and consultation from experts in social services, parent-training interventions, ethnocultural issues, and statistical methodology are also included. The proposed project is a two-phase treatment development study examining the effects of a specialized foster parenting training program on disruptive behavior in school-age children in foster care, as well as the effect on foster parenting skills, knowledge and parenting behavior. The project also includes the development and piloting of a program-specific health services assessment to identify the barriers to implementation and sustainability within the foster care system. Study results will inform an R01, and other applications, which will be designed to create an effective, sustainable mental health intervention for school-age children in fester care. The longitudinal impact of this work will result in decreased individual morbidity, decreased costs to society, and improvement in the recruitment and retention of foster parents. ? ? ?
