Feasibility Study: Prevention Research with Infants in Foster Care

Principal Investigator:
Susan Spieker, PhD, Professor
Family & Child Nursing
School of Nursing, University of Washington

Mentor:
Marilyn McCubbin, PhD, RN, FAAN, Professor
Department of Nursing
School of Nursing & Dental Hygiene
University of Hawaii at Manoa

Infants and young children in the child welfare system have disproportionately poor mental health and developmental outcomes relative to other children, and disproportionately more of them are children of color. Foster and kin families have indicated they need training to deal with behavioral challenges resulting from past experiences of maltreatment, neglect, and disrupted attachment relationships.

The goal of this application is to collect data that will strengthen an NIH R01 we are preparing in response to PAR-05-026 "Community Participation in Research." This PAR has the ultimate goal to "support research on health promotion, disease prevention, and health disparities that is jointly conducted by communities and researchers." The R01 will propose a randomized clinical trial (or other appropriate design) to examine the efficacy of a brief, relationship-based, home visiting preventive intervention to improve caregiver sensitivity, infant attachment security, and infant regulatory outcomes.

Pilot funds will be used to evaluate 1) the appropriateness and acceptability of the intervention to the families; 2) family reaction and acceptance of research procedures, including contact and enrollment, random assignment, and videotaping, self-report and psychophysiological data collection; and 3) intervention outcomes.