Intervention Development and Pilot for Foster Care Youth

描述（由申请人提供）：本R21申请为干预研究提供为期3年的探索性/发展性资助，旨在为9-11岁寄养儿童开发、标准化并提供一种新型干预措施的初步测试。有虐待史并随后被寄养的儿童和青少年面临严重的精神健康和行为问题的风险，这些问题对公共卫生具有重大意义。在我们之前对寄养儿童的纵向研究中，我们描述了人口，检查了儿童福利系统的影响，并确定了可改变的社会心理风险和保护因素。这些预防干预活动得到了首席研究员职业发展奖的支持，使我们能够解决重要的方法问题，这些问题阻碍了针对这一高危人群的干预工作的发展。基于这项干预前研究、焦点小组参与者的反馈，以及对其他针对高危青少年的有效项目的回顾，我们建议为寄养中的青春期前青少年设计一个干预方案，该方案由三个主要部分组成：评估、指导/倡导和治疗技能小组。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This R21 application for a 3-year exploratory/development grant for intervention research is designed to develop, standardize and provide a preliminary test of a novel intervention for children, ages 9-11, placed in foster care. Children and adolescents with a history of maltreatment and subsequent placement in foster care are at risk for substantial mental health and behavioral problems of great public health significance. In our prior longitudinal work with children in foster care, we have described the population, examined child welfare system impact, and identified modifiable psychosocial risk and protective factors. These preintervention activities, supported by the Principal Investigator's Career Development Award, have enabled us to address important methodological issues that have hampered the development of intervention efforts targeting this high-risk population. Based on this pre-intervention research, feedback from focus group participants, and a review of other efficacious programs for high-risk youth, we propose to design an intervention for preadolescent youth in foster care consisting of three primary components: assessment, mentoring/advocacy, and therapeutic skills groups. The proposed R21 activities include developing the assessment battery and intervention protocol, manualizing the treatment, estimating recruitment and attrition rates, and conducting a small-scale randomized-controlled pilot study of the intervention. The goals of the intervention will be to improve mental health functioning and academic achievement and to reduce youths' initiation of, and participation in, problem behaviors. We will conduct a preliminary examination of whether these proximal outcomes are moderated by baseline characteristics and/or mediated by the process variables targeted by the intervention. Estimates of effect size will be used to determine the sample size needed for adequate power to conduct a full-scale randomized controlled trial. The pilot study will also focus on issues of feasibility, program uptake, and replicability, and we will modify the assessment battery, protocol, and manuals following the pilot phase and prior to our application for an R01 to conduct a large-scale efficacy trial.