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Annie E. Casey CTC Dartington Collaboration Phase I This collaboration with the Annie E. Casey Foundation and the Dartington Social Research Unit in Devon, UK will ultimately create a collaboration to develop a comprehensive systems and community change model to promote the positive development of children and families in disadvantaged urban communities. System and community change will be accomplished through assessment of system, community, and youth issues that interfere with healthy development, using evidence-based practices to address these identified needs. This project is envisioned as a three phase collaborative effort to explore the potential for creating a systems change model using the Communities That Care, Common Language, and Annie E. Casey approaches to community and system change. In Phase One, SDRG staff will provide information and training on their respective approaches to systems and community change and develop a logic model for the Casey new integrated model. Future phases will include developing the model, demonstrating the model in selected urban sites, and testing the model after revisions based on the demonstration. Date: 2009 PI: Richard F. Catalano Co-PI: Funding: Annie E. Casey Foundation Community Youth Development Study (CYDS) The Community Youth Development Study began in 2003. It is a community randomized trial of the effectiveness of the Communities That Care (CTC) prevention system. CTC is designed to help communities promote healthy youth development and reduce levels of youth drug use, violence, delinquency, teenage pregnancy, and school dropout. CTC is a science-based, operating system for planning and managing prevention activities at the community level. It empowers a community coalition of stakeholders to collect and use community-specific data on risk and protective factors to guide the selection of tested and effective prevention programs that address the community’s needs. The study involves 12 pairs of matched communities across seven states randomly assigned to either receive training and technical assistance to implement CTC or a control condition. Installation of CTC includes completion of five phases: 1) Get Started—assessing community readiness to undertake collaborative prevention efforts; 2) Get Organized—getting a commitment to the CTC process from community leaders and forming a diverse and representative prevention coalition; 3) Develop a Profile—using epidemiologic data to assess prevention needs and evaluating gaps in current services related to those needs; 4) Create a Plan—choosing tested and effective prevention policies, practices, and programs based on assessment data; and 5) Implement and Evaluate—implementing the new policies, programs and practices with fidelity, in a manner congruent with the program’s theory, content, and methods of delivery, and evaluating progress over time. CYDS analyses found that within 4 years of initiating CTC, the CTC prevention operating system reduced the incidence and prevalence of adolescent tobacco and alcohol use and prevented delinquent behavior community wide among a panel of children followed from grade 5 through grade 8 in CTC communities compared with those in control communities. In 2008, SDRG was awarded continuation funding to study the sustainability of the CTC coalitions and prevention programs implemented, to monitor prevention efforts in the control communities, and to assess the long term effects of the CTC system on adolescent drug use, delinquency, violence, and risky sexual behavior Date: 2003 PI: J. David Hawkins Co-PI: Richard F. Catalano Funding: National Institute on Drug Abuse; National Institute of Mental Health; National Cancer Institute; National Institute on Child Health and Human Development; Center for Substance Abuse Prevention Developing Safe Street Capacity to Implement Communities That Care Model The proposed project seeks to provide the Safe Streets Campaign of Tacoma, Washington with the capacity to implement & sustain the Community Action Plans developed through the Communities That Care program developed at the Social Development Research Group at the School of Social Work, University of Washington in Seattle, Washington. The proposal includes training in prevention science, assessment, data review and identification of best practices in the field of community empowerment. Date: 2009 PI: Kevin P. Haggerty Co-PI: Funding: The Safe Streets Campaign/Tacoma, WA Exploring Implementation of Drug Abuse Prevention in Treatment Settings This study is designed to fill an important gap in health services research on the process of agency adoption and implementation of tested and effective family-based prevention programs. This study is unique in that it braids a theoretical model of behavior development with a process for supporting high-quality program implementation of tested and effective drug abuse prevention programs by drug abuse and mental health treatment agencies. We will be examining the processes of disseminating a tested and effective family-based self-study prevention program (Staying Connected with Your Teen) to inner-city families at seven branches of Therapeutic Health Services (THS), a well-established community health agency in Seattle, WA. Staying Connected is a family-based self-study intervention to prevent substance use, risky sexual behavior, and violence during adolescence. Date: 2010 PI: Kevin P. Haggerty Funding: National Institute on Drug Abuse Family Connections Health Disparities This project is a 6- and 8-year follow up of the Family Connections project. In the original study, a universal family-based intervention to prevent drug use and other problem behaviors, Parents Who Care, was evaluated in two formats: self-administered with telephone support and parent and teen group meetings. Families of eighth graders were randomly assigned to one of these interventions or the comparison group which did not receive either intervention. Results suggest the programs worked differently for African American and European American families. This long-term follow up focuses on ethnic differences in program efficacy, risk and protective factors for drug use, and possible biological mediators of the impact of stress on drug use. Date: 2008 PI: Kevin Haggerty Funding: National Institute on Drug Use International Youth Development Study (IYDS) This three-year collaborative international project between the Social Development Research Group at the University of Washington and the Center for Adolescent Health at the University of Melbourne investigates the impact of individual differences and context on alcohol use during late childhood and early adolescence. The International Youth Development Study (IYDS, R. F. Catalano, PI) collected data in 2002 from 5,769 students in three cohorts (approximately 1,000 students in Grades 5, 7, and 9) using matched procedures and recruitment of statewide representative samples in Washington State in the U.S. and Victoria, Australia. Each cohort was followed over 2 and 3 years (98% completion), resulting in a sample with an age span from 10 to 16 years. Student reports were supplemented with a parent telephone interview and three school administrator reports of the policy context of participants’ schools. The current study uses existing IYDS data to examine similarities and differences in predictors of alcohol use, misuse, and other problems. A unique aspect of this study is the examination of school policy effects on student drug use. Analyses will yield new information on the local and cross-national influences associated with early adolescent alcohol use and symptoms of alcohol use disorders, enabling the cultural generalization of risk influences and alcohol consequences. Date: 2008 PI: Richard F. Catalano Co-PI: John W. Toumbourou (Australia) Funding: National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism Maximum Individualized Change Analysis (MICA) This study expands the research base on analytic methods to assess intervention effects of interventions that target multiple outcomes in heterogeneous populations. Specifically, the project continues the study of the Maximum Individualized Change Analysis (MICA) procedure developed by Boothroyd, Banks, Evans, Greenbaum, and Brown (2004). The method was initially developed as an analytic alternative to the more traditional multivariate and latent model approaches often used in studies examining individually-tailored interventions. Our initial developmental work on this approach suggests that MICA offers a number of significant advantages over traditional statistical approaches in studies where a number of measures are used to assess potential treatment outcomes. These advantages include increased statistical power to detect smaller program effects and few problems associated with missing data. The study will consist of two phases. First, an expanded simulation study of the MICA procedure is being conducted to systematically examine 1) levels of correlation among outcome measures, 2) numbers of outcome measures being assessed, 3) distribution of response effects, 4) numbers of outcome measures on which a person improves, 5) sample size, 6) weighting outcome measures based on qualitative assessment regarding the likelihood of change, and 7) amount of missing data. In phase two, the MICA procedure will be used in the re-analysis of data collected as part of SAMHSA-funded multi-site national study examining the impact of managed care (Leff, et al., 2005). Date: 2008 Subcontract PI: Eric C. Brown Funding: Subcontract with University of South Florida (NIMH funded) Media Impact on Preschool Behavior This project focuses on improving the media diet of young children by decreasing the amount of violence they watch and by increasing the amount of prosocial programming they view. The goal is to study the effects of this intervention on children’s behavior. The project is funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) and will continue through 2012. Date: 2009 Subcontract PI: Todd Herrenkohl Co-PI: Dimitri Christakis (Children's Hospital) Funding: Subcontract with Children's Hospital (NICHD funded) Oregon State Strategic Prevention Framework State Incentive Grant Implementation of the Strategic Prevention Framework State Incentive Grant (SPF-SIG) will afford Oregon the opportunity to build on the advances of the SEOW and current prevention efforts in fostering a statewide comprehensive data-driven system for the application of evidence-based programs, policies and practices. Oregon’s prevention services currently focus on programs targeted at adolescents. The implementation of the SPF-SIG will provide an opportunity to expand the age range across the lifespan. SEOW findings, in combination with tribal and county needs, clearly point to a high need for Oregon to address the underage drinking problem. The SPF-SIG implementation process will be a central focus of the Governor’s Leadership Team for Drug-free Kids and the Oregon Attorney General’s Task Force on Underage Drinking. Date: 2009 PI: Michael Arthur Co-PI: Funding: Oregon Dept of Health & Human Services Raising Healthy Children (RHC) Approximately 1000 students, their parents, and their teachers in Edmonds School District #15 are participating in Raising Healthy Children (RHC), an eight-year project funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Children in seventh and eighth grade, originally from ten Edmonds District elementary schools, are taking part in the project which is being carried out by the Social Development Research Group. The research group has found that certain factors in young children's lives increase their risk for health and behavior problems in adolescence, including drug abuse and dropping out of school. Certain other factors seem to protect children against these problems. School success is one of the "protective factors" the researchers have identified, and one theme of Raising Healthy Children is that each student, given the right opportunity, can and will succeed in school. The project combines parenting workshops and staff development for teachers. Parents will have the opportunity to attend workshops such as "Raising Healthy Children," "How to Help Your Child Succeed in School, "Preparing for the Drug Free Years" and "Moving Into Middle School." They learn how to encourage positive behavior and family bonding as well as academic success. The parenting workshops draw on research which has revealed that early childhood experiences in the family can enhance children's success in school and reduce their risk for later problems. The project also offers home-based services to a limited number of families with special needs who find it impossible to take advantage of the classes. During the high school years, parents and teens receive individual home visits that act as booster sessions to earlier parenting sessions. The indvidual visits are offered as students are moving into high school, as they approach driving age and as they prepare to leave high school. Teachers in elementary and middle school receive training in how to keep children interested in learning. Using "interactive teaching," they provide students with opportunities for involvement, actively monitor each child's understanding of the material, and recognize mastery of incremental learning steps. "Proactive classroom management" enables teachers to create an atmosphere of learning that avoids notice of problem behavior and praises students who try to comply, at the same time minimizing the effect of minor disturbances. Students work in small teams, helping each other master the curriculum content. Active involvement in learning has been shown to enhance student achievement, concern for classmates, and commitment to school. The result of these teaching methods is a classroom where children feel good about themselves and their ability to learn. Strategies employed in Raising Healthy Children have been shown by earlier SDRG research to reduce children's risk for later health and behavior problems. The researchers will carefully evaluate the RHC project to see whether the techniques are successful in a new setting, furthering our understanding of how to promote children's growth into healthy members of the community. NIDA has awarded additional funding for Dr. Rebecca Cortes to investigate the relationship between parent and child depression and changes in symptoms across time. Analyses will also examine potential mediating effects of social-emotional competence on depressed mood symptoms among children in the study. Date: 1993 PI: Richard F. Catalano Co-PI: Kevin P. Haggerty Project Director: Kevin P. Haggerty Funding: National Institute on Drug Abuse Raising Healthy Children Through Communities That Care This project is developing a book that will weave together stories and science to tell what we know about the development of aggression and violence, drug abuse and teen pregnancy, and how families, schools and communities can prevent these problems and promote healthy development. This book will describe what community leaders can do to reinvent their communities as healthy environments for human development. Date: 1998 PI: J. David Hawkins Funding: Bruce and Jolene McCaw Foundation Raising Healthy Children: Bedford County, Pennsylvania Raising Healthy Children: Bedford County, PA is based upon the successful strategies of the Seattle Social Development Project and the Raising Healthy Children project. Bedford County will receive technical assistance, training, and monitoring from SDRG, and local staff will be hired to implement the program. The program’s overall goal is to make a significant impact on known risk and protective factors for academic success, substance abuse, violence, and aggressive behavior before the critical middle school years when children most typically begin to engage in a range of risk behaviors. Bedford County chose to employ this strategy because multiple program replications have demonstrated that, by increasing protection for children and putting them on a positive trajectory, RHC helps reduce the overall number of youth at-risk entering the middle school/junior high school years and increases academic and social success among all students. Like the original RHC project, this current program has teacher, child, and parent components. All elementary grade teachers receive in-service training in a package of instructional methods with three major components: proactive classroom management, interactive teaching, and cooperative learning. Beginning in first grade, teachers implement instruction in the use of a cognitive, emotional, and social skills training and interpersonal cognitive problem solving, which teaches children to think through and use alternative solutions to problems with peers. The curriculum develops children’s skills for involvement in cooperative learning groups and other social activities without resorting to aggressive or other problem behaviors. In addition, in middle-level grades, students receive training in skills to recognize and resist social influences to engage in problem behaviors and to generate and suggest positive alternatives to stay out of trouble while still keeping friends. The parents and caretakers receive classes appropriate to the developmental level of their children. Parents of children in grades 1-3 will be offered training in child behavior management skills and skills to strengthen their ability to support their children’s academic development. Parents of children in grades 4-6 will be offered training to enhance family bonding and strengthen parents’ skills to reduce their children’s risks for drug use. Date: 2006 PI: Richard F. Catalano Funding: Bedford County Commissioners, Bedford County Pennsylvania, and Unified Family Services Systems Seattle Social Development Project (SSDP) SSDP began in 1981 to test strategies for reducing childhood risk factors for school failure, drug abuse, and delinquency. First graders in five Seattle schools were assigned to intervention or control classrooms. Each year through the elementary grades parents and teachers in intervention classrooms learned how to actively engage children in learning, strengthen bonding to family and school, and encourage children's positive behaviors. In 1985, when the original first graders entered the fifth grade, the panel was expanded to 808 students from 18 Seattle elementary schools. These participants and their parents have been interviewed regularly since 1985. The study has produced important findings on the development of alcohol abuse and dependence, on risk factors for school dropout, violence and gang membership, and on long term effects of preventive intervention in the elementary grades. The Seattle Social Development Project has generated many studies drawing on the same panel of participants. Date: 1981 PI: J. David Hawkins Project Director: Karl G. Hill Funding: National Institute on Drug Abuse; Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention; National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism; National Institute of Mental Health; Robert Wood Johnson Foundation; Burlington Northern Foundation; Safeco Insurance Company. SSDP - Adult Development & Mental Health (ADAMH) This study examines the course, consequences, predictors, and prevention of depression, social phobia, and generalized anxiety, as well as their co-occurrence with risk for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection and substance abuse and dependence in young adulthood in the SSDP sample through age 33. Analyses focus on the longitudinal patterns of these outcomes in the 20s and 30s, and the consequences of these patterns for healthy adult functioning, including positive behavior, physical health, and utilization of health services. Analyses include an examination of the effects of patterns of depression and anxiety on HIV risk. The study also examines the role of social developmental processes and proximal stressful life events in explaining patterns of depression and anxiety and their co-occurrence with HIV risk and substance abuse/dependence in young adulthood, as well as the long-term effects of the SSDP intervention in the elementary grades on these patterns. Date: 2006 PI: Rick Kosterman Funding: National Institute on Drug Abuse SSDP - Gene Environment Interplay in the Development of Addiction Tobacco and alcohol abuse and dependence are leading preventable causes of disease and death in the United States. Vulnerability to develop tobacco and alcohol dependence and comorbid problems is influenced by a combination of environmental and genetic factors. This two year grant will allow the Seattle Social Development Project to proceed with collecting and analyzing genetic information on the SSDP sample, and begins a program study on how genes and environment work together in affecting the development of tobacco and alcohol addiction in adulthood. Co-investigators include Jennifer Bailey, David Hawkins and Richard Catalano (UW, SSW) and they are joined by collaborators Matt McQueen and John Hewitt at the Institute for Behavioral Genetics (UC Boulder). Date: 2009 PI: Karl G. Hill Project Director: Jennifer A. Bailey Funding: National Institute on Drug Abuse SSDP - The Intergenerational Project (TIP) The SSDP Intergenerational Project is an ongoing longitudinal study, started in 2000, of the children of the members of the Seattle Social Development Project (SSDP) panel. TIP is a theory-driven study, based on the Social Development Model, that examines the effects and mechanisms of action of parental and grandparental drug use on child development. The study presents a unique opportunity to examine the factors linking drug use across multiple generations and to understand the effects of current and past parental and grandparental drug use on children’s development, behavior, and drug use initiation. Although the study is funded by NIDA, and the aims center around drug use, we have crafted the design to be broader in its assessment package using a multi-informant (parent, child, teacher), multimodal (interview; parent-child observation; neurocognitive assessment; etc.), systems-oriented approach. We collected 4 waves of data in an earlier phase of the study, and have been renewed for another five years to add additional 3 waves of data and to conduct analyses. Most of the children in the first 3 waves were under 10 yrs. In the renewal most will move into adolescence. Date: 2000 PI: Karl G. Hill Project Director: Jennifer A. Bailey Funding: National Institute on Drug Abuse SSDP - Understanding Alcohol Misuse, Abuse and Dependence in Young Adulthood This study is examining the occurrence and course of binge drinking, alcohol abuse and alcohol dependence in young adulthood (ages 21 to 30) in the Seattle Social Development Project panel. The study seeks to understand the relationship between childhood and adolescent patterns of alcohol use and young adult binge drinking, alcohol abuse and alcohol dependence through age 33, and the role of social-developmental factors in influencing these patterns. The study will provide information of use to those designing preventive and treatment interventions for alcohol misuse, alcohol abuse and alcohol dependence. Co-investigators include Jennifer Bailey, David Hawkins and Richard Catalano, and they are joined by Jennifer Maggs of Penn State University. Date: 2008 PI: Karl G. Hill Project Director: Jennifer A. Bailey Funding: Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism Steps To Respect The Social Development Research Group is partnering with Committee for Children to conduct a large-scale school-randomized evaluation of Steps To Respect: A School Bullying Prevention Program. The evaluation calls for 32 schools in four California counties to be randomly assigned to either the intervention condition, receiving the Steps to Respect program, or the control condition. Data from students, teachers, and other school personnel will be collected at pretest (at the beginning of the school year) and posttest (at the end of the school year) to determine whether schools receiving the intervention experience lower levels of bullying behavior and victimization than do control schools. Date: 2008 Subcontract PI: Eric C. Brown Co-PI: Sabrina Low (Committee for Children) Funding: Committee for Children The Depression and Substance Use Prevention Project This project evaluates the feasibility and preliminary efficacy of the Depression and Substance Use Prevention (DSUP) program. DSUP is a parent-training preventive intervention adapted from two existing, evidence-based programs: one that targets adolescent depression and another that targets adolescent substance use. The program is designed for families of depressed parents with children between the ages of 12-15 years. The overall objective of the program is to improve parenting and parent-child interactions, as well as to prevent depression and substance use, and the co-occurrence of these problems, among teens. This project creates the DSUP intervention and provides a preliminary test of the efficacy of the program among families randomly assigned to experimental and control conditions. Date: 2008 PI: W. Alex Mason Funding: National Institute on Drug Abuse The Lehigh Longitudinal Study This is a continuance of a longitudinal study examining the effects of family violence on children as they transition through adolescence and early adulthood. The study seeks to mark transitions and life successes in the lives of individuals exposed to violence at a young age. Funding adds an adult assessment to three earlier waves of data collected over a 15-year period. The project is funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) and the Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR), which will continue through January, 2011. Date: 2007 PI: Todd I. Herrenkohl Funding: National Institute of Child Health and Human Development; Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research