The purpose of the proposed project is to develop, field test, and refine a media-based family program to promote healthy adolescent adjustment. The development of the program will be informed by findings from two decades of NIMH-funded research. Parent/adolescent skills will be the focus of videotapes and manuals that could be used 1) in prevention trials with large samples of normal families and 2) as adjunct materials for clinicians to use in treating disturbed families. Targeted consumers for post-SBIR funding will be parents, public school districts, mental health specialists, and universities. In Phase I one module, a videotape and accompanying brochure designed to improve specific academic skills for middle-school-aged adolescents, will be produced and pilot-tested. Pre-, post-, and 8-week follow-up data from parents, teachers, and school records will be attendance, and discipline contacts will serve as dependent variables. In Phase II, additional and related modules will be developed, pilot- tested, and finally, the set of modules will be field-tested. Each module will focus on probable determinants for adolescents' involvement with deviant peer groups, substance abuse, delinquency, and depression. This set of materials will be developed and field-tested with nonreferred as well as clinical populations referred because of school, anti-social, substance abuse, peer problems, or depression.
