Pilot and Training Core

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7. Project Summary/Abstract The Pilot & Training Core serves a vital function in the Center by providing the ability to conduct smaller projects that can lay the foundation for cutting-edge, multidisciplinary, and scientifically innovative prevention and intervention research at the interface of opioid use and parenting. The Pilot & Training Core will also serve as the engine for training and career development of “Generation 2.0” prevention researchers within the context of the Center's Research Projects and Pilot Studies. This Core will have primary responsibility for overseeing the generation, review, selection, and administration of Pilot Studies led by Early Career Scientists that will complement and enhance the thematically integrated aims of the Center. Each year, at least two new Pilot Studies will be selected following rigorous peer review. Pilot Studies must be linked to the overall aims of the Center and will be judged on their scientific quality, their potential to lead to a proposal for a larger-scale project or a key scientific breakthrough, their potential to increase internal and external collaborations, and their ability to serve the needs of parents with opioid misuse. Three pilot studies have undergone initial review and will begin in the first two years of the Center. They showcase the full spectrum of Early Career Scientists that we will mentor through the Pilot & Training Core of the Center. Pilot 1 is led by an assistant professor (Zalewski) who is close to going up for tenure. Pilot 2 is led by a graduate student with the career goal of becoming an independent substance use researcher (Cioffi), mentored by a Senior Scientist (DeGarmo). Pilot 3 is led by a postdoctoral scholar who is now transitioning to a tenure track position. These Pilot Studies were selected to also reflect the breadth of research across the translational spectrum that the Core will support. Pilot 1 uses a transactional framework to understand how maternal psychopathology and opioid use can contribute to harmful parenting practices, which in turn maintain psychopathology and opioid use. Pilot 2 seeks to understand the impacts of opioid use on parenting among fathers and how that use influences uptake of an evidence-based parenting program. Pilot 3 examines the influence of opioid use on basic social-cognitive processes that are critical to parenting and potential intervention targets such as mentalizing. This Core will interface with the other Cores and to provide transdisciplinary training to Early Career Scientists following our early-senior partnership and co-mentorship training models. External and internal trainees will learn approaches across the translational prevention cycle through hands-on, project-based mentorship as well as workshops and webinars. The Core will also serve as a national resource via regular webinars, social media presence, and field building activities.