Social Development Research Group Current Projects

Search Projects
Current Projects | Prior Research | By Investigator



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. Start Date: 2009 PI: Richard F. Catalano Funding: Annie E. Casey Foundation Communities That Care Trainings - Manitoba SDRG is providing Manitoba’s Healthy Child Manitoba Office (HCMO) with strategic consultation to develop provincial supports for community implementation of Communities That Care (i.e., student survey and technical assistance to provincial staff designated to support CTC implementation) and has contracted with certified CTC trainers to deliver the full series of CTC trainings and technical assistance to four communities selected to pilot CTC in Manitoba. The pilot sites include one diverse urban neighborhood and three rural First Nations and mixed communities. Start Date: 2010 PI: Kevin P. Haggerty Co-PI: Funding: Healthy Child Manitoba Website: 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 Start 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; National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism 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. Start 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. Start 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. Start Date: 2008 PI: Richard F. Catalano Co-PI: John W. Toumbourou (Australia) Funding: National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism King County Department of Community & Human Services - AAFT Evaluation The Social Development Research Group is consulting with Therapeutic Health Services and King County on the Evaluation of the Assertive Adolescent and Family Treatment Project. SDRG is assisting with the process evaluation of the program adaptations, and with the analysis of outcome data gathered for the program that is being delivered to young adults. Start Date: 2010 PI: Kevin P. Haggerty Co-PI: Funding: King County Department of Community & Human Services Website: 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. Start Date: 2009 Subcontract PI: Todd I. Herrenkohl Co-PI: Dimitri Christakis (Children's Hospital) Funding: Subcontract with Children's Hospital (NICHD funded) OSPI/UW Middle School Guidance Curriculum Initiative This project seeks to define research-based personal-social, academic-educational, and career development middle school competencies and outcomes. A logic model will be developed to connect developmental guidance and interventions to impact identified outcomes. This is Phase 1 of a three-phase project. Phase 1 will develop a responsive service model that will promote future orientation and assist middle schools in meeting priority outcomes. A plan will be provided to write, pilot, and implement the guidance curriculum at selected middle schools in Washington State. Start Date: 2010 PI: Kevin P. Haggerty Co-PI: Funding: Washington State Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) Website: 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. Start 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. Start Date: 1998 PI: J. David Hawkins Funding: Bruce and Jolene McCaw Foundation 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. Start Date: 1981 PI: Karl G. Hill Co-PI: Rick Kosterman Project Director: Jennifer A. Bailey 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. Website: http://ssdp-tip.org 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. Start Date: 2006 PI: Rick Kosterman Funding: National Institute on Drug Abuse Website: http://ssdp-tip.org 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). Start Date: 2009 PI: Karl G. Hill Project Director: Jennifer A. Bailey Funding: National Institute on Drug Abuse Website: http://ssdp-tip.org 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. Start Date: 2000 PI: Karl G. Hill Project Director: Jennifer A. Bailey Funding: National Institute on Drug Abuse Website: http://ssdp-tip.org 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. Start Date: 2008 PI: Karl G. Hill Project Director: Jennifer A. Bailey Funding: Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism Website: http://ssdp-tip.org Staying Connected—Partners for Our Children This 3-year study is designed to evaluate the feasibility of disseminating an evidence- based, self–directed, family-focused substance abuse prevention program (Staying Connected with Your Teen) within the foster care system. Staying Connected with Your Teen is a family-based intervention to prevent substance use, risky sexual behavior, and violence during adolescence that has shown long-term (2-year) effects in reducing initiation into drug use and risky sexual activity, and has reduced the frequency of violent behaviors, especially among low-income African American teens. This study is designed to build capacity within three Children’s Services Administration regions in Washington State to adapt and implement this prevention program. This study is unique in that it employs a theoretical model of behavior development with a process for adapting and implementing a tested and efficacious drug abuse prevention program with kinship care and non-relative foster care families. This project focuses on collaborating with child welfare practitioners and foster caregivers to identify the specific needs and unique implementation issues encountered in administering this intervention to foster families in the child welfare system. It brings together two research groups, the Social Development Research Group, which has developed and tested the efficacy of a number of prevention programs, with Partners for Our Children, a foster care research group. We expect that this collaborative evaluation of the feasibility of integrating substance abuse prevention into kinship care and non-relative foster care will set the stage for a future comparative trial with more intensive foster care drug abuse prevention parenting programs. This study will explore the feasibility of disseminating a self-directed substance abuse prevention program through the foster care system, and will generate valuable knowledge about adaptations, barriers, and enablers to effective implementation. Start Date: 2010 PI: Kevin P. Haggerty Co-PI: Funding: National Institute on Drug Abuse Website: Stepping Up to High School This is a five-year experimental test of the efficacy of the Boys Town Common Sense Parenting® (CSP) program targeted toward a selective sample of eighth-grade students to improve the transition to high school. Both the original program and a modified version that is supplemented with materials piloted by the Social Development Research Group from the Stepping Up to High School (SUTHS) curriculum will be evaluated. Based on social learning principles, CSP is a widely used parent-training preventive intervention that seeks to improve family management and family interactions, as well as reduce child problem behaviors. Based on the social development model, SUTHS is designed to improve the transition to high school by reducing risks for substance use, delinquency, HIV-related risky sex behavior, and school failure. CSP and CSP+SUTHS represent promising family-based prevention programs for facilitating successful entry into high school. Seeking to improve the transition to high school among students at risk for school failure and dropout helps fill a critical programming need and holds promise for reducing the significant costs associated with substance use and related problem behaviors. The research study is being conducted in three Tacoma School District middle schools. Start Date: 2010 Subcontract PI: Kevin P. Haggerty Co-PI: Funding: Subcontract with Boys Town (NIDA funded) Website: Supporting Early Adulthood Transitions (SEAT) Study The Supporting Early Adulthood Transitions (SEAT) study is a collaborative project with the Social Development Research Group, the Annie E. Casey Foundation, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to evaluate the Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative as an evidence-based intervention for youth with foster care experience who are aging out of care. The Initiative works to achieve positive outcomes for youth who are aging out of the foster care system. It does so by working to improve youth outcomes in the areas of permanence, education, employment, health, housing, community engagement, and financial capability. The ultimate goal of the Initiative is to change social work policy and practice toward facilitating successful transition to adulthood for youth in foster care. Having already completed a successful demonstration phase, the Initiative is now beginning a rigorous longitudinal evaluation that will compare Initiative sites to matched comparison sites. The SDRG research team is working closely with Jim Casey Initiative staff to conduct baseline and multiple follow-up interviews with youth, key leaders, and Initiative staff to examine changes in targeted outcomes and to establish evidence for the effectiveness of the intervention. Start Date: 2011 PI: Richard F. Catalano Co-PI: Funding: Annie E. Casey Foundation Website: The Community Youth Development Study: Science-based Community Intervention in Indian Country This supplement will provide a unique opportunity to better prepare CTC to be sustainable and produce population-wide effects in Indian country. This supplement will allow us to augment the primary community diagnostic and outcome instrument, the CTC Youth Survey, to include potential culturally specific risk and protection indicators and to augment the survey to include HIV risk behaviors, an important but little studied outcome among Indian youth. Start Date: 2010 PI: J. David Hawkins Co-PI: Funding: National Institute on Drug Abuse Website: The Community Youth Development Study: Margaret Kuklinski Supplement Dr. Margaret Kuklinski received a supplemental research grant to conduct economic analysis of the Community Youth Development Study (CYDS). The study consists of cost-benefit analyses of the preventive effects of CTC on substance use and delinquency in youth, and an assessment of the effects of the economic downturn on the sustainability of the Communities That Care prevention system in CYDS communities. Start Date: 2010 PI: J. David Hawkins Co-PI: Funding: National Institute on Drug Abuse Website: 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. Start Date: 2007 PI: Todd I. Herrenkohl Funding: National Institute of Child Health and Human Development; Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research