Integration of Prevention Services into a System-Of-Care

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The present study aims to study the effects of integrating the Early Risers early-age-targeted preventive intervention into a children s mental health system of care. The intervention has been adapted to reflect a client-centered, variable prescriptive approach that is compatible with community implementation (i.e., community-integration model). The Early Risers community integration model will be delivered by a community agency that provides services for child witnesses of intimate partner violence. The targeted population served in this study will be children 4 to 10 years of age who along with their mothers have completed a stay at 1 of 3 agency shelters. Within each of 3 shelters, children will be randomly assigned to the Early Risers preventive intervention or a service-as-usual control condition. The intervention trial will be implemented over a 30-month period. Effectiveness of the intervention will be assessed as the capacity of the Early Risers intervention to positively modify proximal child, parent, and family competencies purported to mediate healthy child adjustment. Additionally, the study also will assess fidelity of implementation and client acceptability. Last, the study will attempt to test a goodness-of-fit model that includes client characteristics that are associated with achieving recommended rates of service utilization and more positive outcomes by levels of service intensity.