RISP for Mental Health Services in the Aftermath of Violence Against Women

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The NIH/NIMH "Bridging Science and Service" report recommends supporting collaborative partnerships between academic researchers and public care systems as a way to fuse mental health research with mental health practice. PA 04-015, the "Interventions and Practice Research Infrastructure Program" IP- RISP, resulted from that report. It specifically seeks to "foster an active, synergistic partnership between mental health researchers and community-based, clinical/services staff, clinicians and patients/clients to: (1) advance our knowledge about developing research infrastructure in community settings and the establishment of collaborative partnerships; (2) identify and incorporate those factors (e.g., organizational, sociocultural, interpersonal) in community settings that may be associated with quality care and optimal outcomes for patients and clients; and (3) test adapted, evidence-based interventions (treatment, rehabilitative, and preventive) in community settings." The current application aims to address all three of these goals in collaboration with a community-based, specialty care agency serving female victims of domestic or sexual violence. Violence against women is a pervasive social problem, often resulting in severe mental health consequences for its victims. The purpose of this R24 IP-RISP application, then, is to collaborate with a well- established domestic violence-rape crisis mental health services organization to develop a research infrastructure in a community setting that is supportive of collaborative research on mental health services for battered women and rape victims. This application has 4 specific aims: (1) Develop a research infrastructure that supports conducting community-based mental health services research pertaining to violence against women. (2) Develop a community based, specialty care agency's infrastructure to enhance their capacity to engage in collaborative research. (3) Test an evidence-based intervention in a community-based agency setting. (4) Systematically evaluate an integrated model of the collaborative research process. Within these aims five studies will be conducted. The achievement of these aims will result in a community-based research infrastructure able to support and sustain a wide variety of research studies pertaining to the mental health consequences of intimate and sexual violence. Further, the empirically assessed model of collaborative research will be made available to other researchers seeking to bridge mental health research and practice.