Mental Health Services for Foster Children

描述（由申请人提供）：这个职业发展奖的最终目标是为申请人提供必要的技能和知识，以研究寄养儿童的生态心理健康服务模式。该奖项将使申请人获得必要的专业知识，以开发和研究服务模式，将心理健康功能纳入儿童福利服务业务，并在寄养家庭和学校提供以生态为重点的服务。有几个因素提供了一个特殊的机会，发展一个有效的特定环境的服务模式，包括儿童福利的临床服务的高支出，儿童福利服务的普遍性，以及最近的关注寄养儿童的学业成绩低，许多寄养家庭的条件差。拟议的模式将把心理健康干预纳入现有的儿童福利服务，以利用现有的服务接触，发生在寄养家庭和学校的有效性有限的证据。有了这个职业发展奖，申请人将建立在研究方法，在儿童福利的直接实践，并与寄养儿童应用研究强大的背景。拟议的目标包括获得研究和统计方法的先进技能;在寄养家庭和学校实施有效干预技术的知识和技能;使用战略的技能，以提高模型的可持续性，并了解机构和国家一级的因素如何影响可持续性。这些增强的技能和知识将使申请人能够进行心理健康服务研究，目标是为寄养儿童研究可持续，有效的服务模式。 研究计划包括两项研究。在第一个，二次分析使用的方法，适合纵向分析的聚类数据将被用来测试寄养父母和机构一级的影响，寄养儿童的情绪和行为问题的变化，随着时间的推移。第二项研究将是一个试点研究的综合寄养家庭-学校干预行为问题的儿童，将涉及提供寄养行为管理培训，个案咨询与教师，并支持寄养父母和教师在他们使用的行为管理和策略，以支持学习成绩。一个包括现有心理健康提供者、个案工作者和准专业人员在内的提供者团队将在现有机构提供服务。这项先导研究将为日后的R 01计划奠定基础，以发展和测试为寄养儿童而设的综合寄养家庭及校本精神健康服务模式的成效。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The ultimate goal of this Career Development Award is to provide the applicant with the skills and knowledge necessary to study an ecological mental health service model for foster children. The award will allow the applicant to gain the expertise necessary to develop and study service models that integrate mental health functions into child welfare service operations and provide ecologically focused services in foster homes and in schools. Several factors provide an exceptional opportunity to develop an effective context-specific service model, including the high expenditures on clinical services in child welfare, the pervasive nature of child welfare services, and the recent attention on foster children's low academic achievement and the poor conditions in many foster homes. The proposed model will integrate mental health interventions into existing child welfare services to capitalize on the existing service contacts that occur in foster homes and schools with limited evidence of effectiveness. With this Career Development Award, the applicant will build upon a strong background in research methods, direct practice in child welfare, and applied research with foster children. The proposed goals include gaining advanced skills in research and statistical methods; knowledge and skills in the implementation of effective intervention technologies in foster homes and schools; skills in the use of strategies to enhance model sustainability and an understanding of how agency and state-level factors affect sustainability. These enhanced skills and knowledge will allow the applicant to pursue mental health services research with the goal of studying sustainable, effective service models for foster children. The research plan consists of two studies. In the first, secondary analyses using methods appropriate for longitudinal analysis of clustered data will be used to test foster parent and agency-level effects on changes in foster children's emotional and behavioral problems over time. The second study will be a pilot study of an integrated foster home-school intervention for children with behavior problems that will involve providing foster behavior management training, case consultation with teachers, and support of foster parents and teachers in their use of behavior management and strategies to support academic performance. A provider team including existing mental health providers, caseworkers, and paraprofessionals will provide services in an existing agency. This pilot study will form the basis for a future R01 project to develop and test the effectiveness of an integrated foster home and school-based mental health service model for foster children.