Reconnecting Youth
Prevention Research Program

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: 1999-2002

This study extends the efficacy evaluation of Promoting CARE (currently funded by NIH) by comparing program outcomes for suicide-vulnerable Hispanic youth from New Mexico with a group of suicide-vulnerable Caucasian youth participating in the Promoting CARE grant in Seattle.

The purpose of Project CARE is to evaluate the effectiveness of two brief youth suicide interventions:
1. Counselors-CARE
2. Counselors- and Parents-CARE

Project CARE has two distinct elements:
1. Counselors-Care is an interactive personalized assessment plus a brief motivational counseling intervention designed to:

• deliver empathy and support
• provide personal information
• reinforce coping skills and help-seeking behaviors
• increase access to help
• enhance access to social support

2. Parents-CARE is a social network support intervention designed to:

• coach parents/guardians in suicide prevention first-aid
• increase parental support and communication competence
• enhance parental capacity to coach their teens in specific coping skills

• decrease suicide-risk behaviors
• decrease depression
• decrease anger
• decrease agression

• increased personal control
• increased coping skills
• increased family support
• decreased family distress

Additionally, we hypothesize that Hispanic youth participating in Promoting CARE, when compared to Caucasian youth participating in the same intervention, will demonstrate equivalent changes in these same outcome and mediating factors. This innovative study is significant because it addresses both theory-testing and prevention science, and should markedly increase our understanding of ways in which indicated preventive interventions work to curb depression, anger and suicide-risk behaviors for suicide-vulnerable youth. It will specifically advance prevention science by addressing the question of whether Promoting CARE is generalizable to both Caucasian and Hispanic families in influencing reduced suicide-risk among high-risk youth.