The long-range objectives of this project are to improve family functioning and reduce disparities in mental health services and outcomes through the development of a sustainable research partnership among family support providers and university researchers. Building upon existing partnerships among community agencies and university faculty in a developing System of Care (SOC) for children with severe emotional disturbance (SED) and their families and for families in the child welfare system, this project will build the capacity of family support programs to collect and manage data, enabling research to document the impact of family support activities. This research can inform practice and reduce disparities in access to and receipt of services among underserved groups, and help build an evidence base for family support, particularly when provided by paraprofessionals. It has strong potential for expanding to examine a wide array of family support programs offered by schools, faith-based organizations, and nonprofits. Family support programs have been found to have modest effects on children and families (Layzer et al., 2001). Since these programs continue to be encouraged as components of SOC initiatives supported through both SAMHSA and the Children's Bureau, knowledge of their impact on children and families is critically important. A community-based participatory research (CBPR) approach will be used to study family support, and local organizations will develop the capacity to identify research questions, collect and manage reliable and valid data about service provision and outcomes, implement program elements consistently, analyze and interpret results, and translate information gained via research into action. This project builds upon existing university-community partnerships to accomplish the following specific aims: 1. Strengthen local infrastructure to support family support organizations and family members'active involvement in CBPR. The partnership will build upon existing local resources to facilitate CBPR examining family support. 2. Examine the impact of family support on child and family team (CFT) meeting processes and child and family functioning. Within both mental health and child welfare contexts, two multi-method pilot studies will examine the impact of family support activities within a community SOC initiative, assessing the effects of family mentoring and support on the implementation of CFT meetings, the plans developed in them, the services received by families, and the impact of family support programming on child and family well-being.
Relevance to Public Health Although family support programs have become important components of Systems of Care, within both public mental health and child welfare systems, these programs, particularly when run by paraprofessionals, have been relatively understudied. It is important to identify the characteristics and components of family support programs that can best benefit families. This project will evaluate the impact of these programs to help build an evidence base that can inform and improve practice and, crucially, address disparities in mental health services and outcomes.
