Proximal and Distal Protective Factors for Dating Violence among Child Welfare Involved Adolescents

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Project Summary Adolescence dating violence (ADV), contributes to medical, behavioral, and social consequences, including suicidality, externalizing problems, PTSD, chronic physical health conditions, and homelessness. Strikingly, child welfare involved adolescents are 200% more likely to experience ADV perpetration and victimization. Yet, many child welfare involved adolescents also display resilience against ADV. The current study aims to better identify factors that protect against ADV in the context of child abuse and neglect. Using intensive sampling of social media (SM) data in concert with self-report assessments of interpersonal characteristics, the current study examines proximal and distal protective factors for ADV among child welfare involved adolescents. Candidate: The candidate is a clinical scientist with a background in developmental psychopathology and ADV. Her prior research uses typical longitudinal modeling and self-report interpersonal characteristics among normative adolescents. She is applying for a five-year K01 Career Development Award in order to expand her expertise and support her training, mentorship, and research within child abuse and neglect. Training: Specific training overseen by the mentorship team through formal coursework, workshops, seminars, conferences, directed readings, clinical work, and mentored experiences will be received by the candidate. Specifically, she aims to foster three new areas of expertise: (1) novel and naturalistic assessments of interpersonal relationships; (2) conducting research in child abuse and neglect among child welfare involved youth; and (3) large and intensive sampling data management and analysis. The candidate is institutionally supported by Rhode Island Hospital and the Alpert Medical School of Brown University. Mentoring: Four well-established researchers serve as mentors on this proposal. Each brings complementary expertise consistent with the study’s aims and training objectives. Dr. Nicole Nugent is the primary mentor and has experience examining intensive sampling of social interactions via SM data among trauma exposed youth. Three other co-mentors have expertise in conducting research in child abuse and neglect and collaborating with court systems to conduct research among child welfare involved youth (Drs. Seifer, Rizzo, and Kemp). Further, Dr. Rizzo is also an expert in ADV prevention and intervention. In addition, Dr. Jeff Huang has been included as a computer scientist consultant, providing guidance on the download and management of SM data via a social data extractor. Research: Using both naturalistic and self-report methods, 100 child welfare involved adolescents (ages 14-18) will be recruited from the Rhode Island Family Court. The aims of the proposed project are to (1) Understand proximal (i.e., daily-level) associations between interpersonal relationships (measured via SM) and DV involvement among child welfare involved adolescents (2) Complement self-report with naturalistic assessments (i.e., SM) of interpersonal relationships to understand their distal (i.e., monthly temporal lags spanning 6 months) protective function in the context of child abuse and neglect.