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Internship
in Clinical Child Psychology Examples of Psychology Interns’ Participation on Clinical Research Projects Project Title Chicago HIV-Prevention and Adolescent Mental Health Project (CHAMP) Supervisors Roberta Paikoff, Ph.D., Sybil M. Madison, Ph.D., and Donna Baptiste, Ed.D, Doris Coleman, LCSW, Kristi Y. Jordan, Ph.D., Jerome Richardson, Ph.D. Project Description CHAMP is a research program centered around identifying and intervening with the child, family, and community factors related to lowered HIV risk in high HIV-infection rate communities. Currently, CHAMP consists of three ongoing NIMH-funded research projects: 1) The CHAMP Family Study, 2) The CHAMP Family Program, and 3) The CHAMP Continuation. A description of each project and of the possible roles for pre-doctoral psychology interns is provided below. The CHAMP Family Study. (Roberta Paikoff, Kristi Y. Jordan, Jerome Richardson) The CHAMP Family Study is a longitudinal basic research study that examines the factors related to protecting children from HIV risk exposure (e.g. early sexual activity). Since 1993, approximately 320 children aged 9 and 10 and their families from the South and West sides of Chicago have participated in extensive individual and family interviews. These youth are now in their teens and a third wave of data collection is scheduled to begin in the fall of 2000. Psychology interns who are with CHAMP for a full year often have worked with the CHAMP Family Study for a research experience that supplements their group experiences in the CHAMP Family Program. This year, interns can be involved in shaping the extensive interview protocol, conducting the interviews with youth and families, and analyzing data from the longitudinal study. The CHAMP Family Program. (Roberta Paikoff, Donna Baptiste, Doris Coleman, Sybil Madison) In 1995, the CHAMP Family Program, a family-based preventive intervention, was developed based upon the findings from the CHAMP Family Study and the research literature on prevention in urban communities. The CHAMP Family Program is based on a collaborative model that involves community members and researchers as partners in shaping, implementing, and researching the intervention. Community and university partners serve on the CHAMP Collaborative Board, which is chaired by Carl Bell, M.D., the CEO of the Community Mental Health Center (located on the South side of Chicago). The Board meets monthly and oversees all aspects of the intervention. The intervention is a 12-week, longitudinal, family-based intervention that targets children and families from four schools on the South side of Chicago. Families participate in the intervention at 4/5th grade and again at 6/7th grade. CHAMP families meet once a week for two hours in groups of 5 to 10 at school or community sites. The intervention is designed to bolster family communication, enhance caretakers' strategies for monitoring their children, enhance children's social problem solving skills, and provide basic information about puberty and HIV/AIDS. Groups are facilitated by teams of community parents and mental health interns who have completed joint training. The CHAMP Family Program is in its final 6 months of funding, which makes this a unique year for interns. In the past, interns have facilitated multiple family groups, participated as a member of the CHAMP Collaborative Board, helped to develop and pilot intervention curricula, and analyzed intervention data. This year, interns may have the opportunity to run at least one multiple family group and will be able to examine the intervention’s outcome data in collaboration with community partners. The CHAMP Continuation. (Roberta Paikoff, Doris Coleman, Donna Baptiste, Sybil Madison) The CHAMP Continuation is an extension of the CHAMP Family Program and consists of three research objectives. First, a follow-up of the participants in the CHAMP Family Program will be conducted to examine the long term impact of the intervention upon HIV risk exposure. Second, the CHAMP Family Program will be replicated in partnership with schools on Chicago’s West side and in partnership with schools in the Bronx, New York. The final objective of the continuation is to leadership and ownership of the CHAMP Family Program from the university to community control. The ongoing process of collaboration will be studied, in addition to the process of leadership development and transfer. The CHAMP Continuation begins on September 18, 2000. In the first year of the grant, focus is placed on the development of an expanded collaborative partnership with West side schools and community members. Interns will have numerous opportunities to make significant contributions to this developing phase of CHAMP. All experiences will involve collaboration with community members. Interns will be involved with developing a research design that adequately captures the processes of university-community collaboration and leadership development. Interns will have the opportunity to participate in the collaborative partnership as members of the CHAMP Collaborative Board. Finally, interns will have the opportunity to help pilot and revise the intervention curriculum for the new West side target communities. Project Title Parenting Assessment Team, Teen Parenting Assessment Team, Parenting Clinic Supervisors Teresa Jacobsen, Ph.D. , Alissa K. Levy, Ph.D., Julia Kim, Ph.D. Description The Parenting Assessment Team (PAT) and the Teen Parenting Assessment Teams (TPAT) were formed to assist the purpose of assisting the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) and the Cook County Juvenile Court in evaluating parenting capabilities of mentally ill parents who are alleged perpetrators of child abuse or neglect. Each team consists of a psychiatrist, child psychologist, social worker, and Case Aid. The teams both have service and research components. Service. The PAT and TPAT primarily provide service to DCFS, although its evaluations are also designed to be of use to the Juvenile court. The assessments performed by the PAT include structured and clinical psychiatric interviews, pediatric evaluations of the children, psychological and developmental assessments of children, including interviews and standardized tests, assessment of parent-child attachment quality, evaluations in the home setting, structured and clinical assessment of social support, collateral history from significant others, assessment of the home environment, urine drug screens of the parent, and review of pertinent mental health, pediatric and criminal records. The parenting clinic is designed to help improve the parent child relationship in young parents who are struggling to raise a baby or young child. Families who participate in the clinic receive infant-parent psychotherapy, and may participate in individual therapy or play therapy (children). Home visits are an integral part of the treatment plan. Research. In addition to weekly assessments of parenting competency in parents with mental illness, the team is also undertaking a study to develop a set of reliable and valid tools to evaluate parenting competency in mentally ill parents. The research project addresses the following two questions: (1) Which parenting assessment data can reliably distinguish between mentally ill parents who have put their children at risk, and mentally ill parents who have not put their children at risk? (2) Which parenting assessment tools would be useful as screening instruments, and which as intensive evaluation instruments? Psychology Interns Roles and Contributions Interns participate both in the actual developmental assessments of children, in interviewing parents, and in report writing. They also meet with team members each week to review and discuss ongoing cases. Psychology interns have participated in the study of internal representations of children and Expressed Emotion (EE) in parents who were assessed by the team. One intern presented a paper on the relation between attitudes about caregiving and maternal interactive quality at the annual meetings of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Two manuscripts are currently under review (both by trainees) to peer reviewed journals. One intern also wrote a document, in conjunction with a child psychiatry fellow, for Juvenile Court judges describing major mental illnesses and their effects on parenting competency. Project Title The PALS Project: Positive Attitudes for Learning in School Supervisors Marc S. Atkins, Ph.D. and Jaleel Abdul Adil, Ph.D. Project Description Schools are one of the few existing resources for children and families consistently available within urban low income communities and therefore offer a unique opportunity to promote positive mental health for children and families. The purpose of this project is to evaluate the effectiveness of a new program, PALS (Positive Attitudes for Learning in Schools), a 3-year NIMH-funded collaboration between Chicago Public Schools and the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). PALS is a collaborative school-based program in which parents, teachers, and UIC staff work together to provide classroom activities to: 1) improve children's learning, 2) teach children to cooperate and get along with their classmates, 3) provide family linkages to school by assisting parents’ involvement in their child's schooling, 4) develop activities for parents that will provide parents with social support and skill development, and 5) assist school's to plan for children's needs throughout the year. Participants will be 100 children in kindergarten, 2nd, and 4th grades from 2 Chicago public schools. Classrooms are randomly assigned to receive PALS or clinic-based mental health services at the Institute for Juvenile Research. Children within these classrooms will be selected for participation if they are identified by their teacher and parent as exhibiting disruptive behavior at school and home, and their parent or guardian provides permission to participate in the project. The experimental PALS project uses an ecological model to guide program staff to identify ways to increase all children’s learning in the classroom and to improve the involvement of children’s parents. The ecological perspective emphasizes the need for least-restrictive, group-administered services, that are flexible and individualized across the multiple contexts for children’s behavior, and that integrate into ongoing school routines and resources. The PALS team consists of the classroom teacher, a parent hired by the project, and a mental health provider who work collaboratively guided by a manualized treatment that proceeds in four phases: engagement of key constituents in urban schools, development of collaborative partnerships among PALS team members, systematic assessment of ecological classroom contexts, and delivery of empirically-based services. Psychology Interns Roles and Contributions
Project Title Schools And Families Educating Children (SAFE Children) Supervisors Deborah Gorman-Smith, Ph.D., Patrick H. Tolan, Ph.D., and Jennifer Treuting, Ph.D. Description The SAFE Children Project began as a three-year prevention research program funded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). The primary goal of the project is to decrease risk for later substance use, delinquency, and other negative outcomes among children growing up in inner-city neighborhoods in Chicago. The program is largely family-focused, working to strengthen family processes that are linked to positive outcomes in children and supporting parents in their efforts to manage the challenges of urban life. During the initial years of the program, the primary aim was to provide a family-based comprehensive preventive intervention to first grade children living in inner-city neighborhoods in the South and West sides of Chicago. This intervention consisted of weekly multiple family groups held during the child’s first grade year, as well as individual tutoring in reading for the children. Multiple family group sessions focused on enhancing parents’ and children’s orientation to school, developing social and academic competencies in children, strengthening family cohesiveness, and building greater effectiveness in how parents manage their children’s lives. In 2000, SAFE Children received funding for an additional three years to study the effectiveness of a booster intervention that will be delivered in the children’s fourth grade year. This 20-week multiple family group booster intervention will focus on challenges inherent in this stage of development (monitoring children’s lives outside of the home; staying involved in children’s education; setting and reaching goals; preparing for the challenges of adolescence; managing neighborhood stressors including exposure to violence and substance use). A reading club will also be used to maintain a focus on the importance of reading skills and to help parents and children share their ideas and beliefs. The larger objective of this research is to provide information for families, schools, the community, and policy-makers regarding effective ways of preventing developmental problems among children growing up in urban communities. Psychology Interns’ Roles and Contributions Psychology interns have been involved in the SAFE Children Project (and other projects within this research group) in both clinical and research capacities. Interns have served as facilitators of multiple family groups; participated in the development of the family group curriculum; and pursued specific research interests through collaboration in the analysis of data and presentation of results from this and other studies. |
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