Administrative SupportDr. Atkins, PI, will direct the Operations Core and oversee all administrative tasks, assume primaryresponsibility for coordinating Center activities, and monitor progress on key Center goals and tasks. Dr. Atkinsdirected the interdisciplinary network, Schools as Context for Mental Health, with Drs. Schoenwald, Birman,Glisson, and Frazier as members, which will benefit the Center through their collaboration and experience atmaintaining such communication through the three years of their network.Bi-weekly conference calls. Correspondence among co-directors (Atkins, Schoenwald, Gibbons,Glisson, and Pianta) will be maintained via bi-weekly conference calls to monitor resource and personnelneeds, and to consider the need for additional expertise to advance the Center's mission. In alternate weeks,Dr. Atkins will meet with the lead researchers (Birman, Cappella, Frazier, and Hamre) to obtain updates onresearch and training activities and to provide professional mentoring (see Early Career Mentoring below). Dr.Atkins also will maintain regular phone and email correspondence with Dr. Hoagwood, who will head theScientific and Policy Advisory Board.Web-based tools. The 3-C Institute for Social Development, Inc. in North Carolina has agreed toprovide consultation and technical support to the Center to facilitate communication among Center members,and to disseminate Center training activities (see letter of support). The Institute has contracts with the NIMHand several research teams to provide web-based tools toward similar communication and training goals.Related to fostering communication, they provide opportunities for virtual meeting rooms, collaborative workspace,private messaging, and discussion boards. Given the multi-site nature of our proposed center, we viewthese technical advances as important to maintaining ongoing collaboration, facilitating interaction amongmembers, and assisting cross-site training activities and writing.Annual Meetings. Network members will convene as a group at least twice annually. In Years 1-2,these meetings will provide opportunities to learn more about each other's work, participate in focuseddiscussions, and share preliminary findings from Center research projects. In subsequent years, as the work ofthe Center advances, these will become working meetings with key members convening to work on conferencepresentations, manuscripts, and grant applications. Although much of this can, and will, be managed acrosssites, experience on the interdisciplinary network grant indicated that face-to-face meetings of all members wasan important opportunity to promote interdisciplinary dialogue, critique paper and grant ideas, and establish ashared mission related to the study of schools as a context for urban children's mental health.
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