Few mental health treatment programs specifically address the complex needs of African American (AA) abuse survivors. We plan to use CBPR to develop and test a community-based multi-faceted intervention to reduce depression disparities in African American women who experienced IPV. The purpose of the proposal is to strengthen our community-academic partnership and to acquire the skills, tools and preliminary data necessary to conduct a large scale controlled trial. Our partnership consists of African American IPV survivors, community leaders, domestic violence advocates, mental health providers and researchers who have been working together to understand the beliefs and needs of depressed African American IPV survivors. We are now developing a depression care model based within the Healing Roots center, a community-based African American domestic violence program. Our intervention incorporates many of the same principles included in the heath system based Chronic Care Model but it places the community and its resources at the core of the program. African American domestic violence advocates will serve in a similar role to that of care managers, providing care coordination and patient education. They will link IPV survivors into the health care system and empower them to have more effective interactions with both onsite and clinic based providers. Advocates will use motivational interviewing techniques to help women make changes they wish to make in a culturally appropriate manner. Finally, we will incorporate creative arts-based programs as a way to recruit and retain women who might otherwise be hesitant to access mental heath services or recognize their IPV. We will strengthen the partnership between our academic and community groups, build capacity from CBPR among all members, and monitor the success of the process. We will adapt, prioritize and pilot test our intervention to assess its feasibility and acceptability and collect preliminary effectiveness data. Moreover, we will engage the community in designing and preparing an acceptable large-scale intervention study. Our project is strongly grounded in principles of Empowerment theory on both micro and macro levels. On an individual level our project will empower women to address violence in their relationships, to use self-management support tools and self-care practices to control their depression, and to become involved informed consumers of mental health services. At the community level, the project will enable community members to partner with researchers to design and conduct research that is relevant to their needs and respectful of their expertise, which leaves long lasting resources in place and leads directly to social change. ? ? ?
| Wahab, Stéphanie; Trimble, Jammie; Mejia, Angie et al. (2014) Motivational interviewing at the intersections of depression and intimate partner violence among African American women. J Evid Based Soc Work 11:291-303 |
| Nicolaidis, Christina; Wahab, Stéphanie; Trimble, Jammie et al. (2013) The Interconnections Project: development and evaluation of a community-based depression program for African American violence survivors. J Gen Intern Med 28:530-8 |
