Project

Staying Connected—Partners for Our Children

Project Description

This three-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 (two-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.