Current Projects
Design of a Lay Health Worker Training to Promote Youth's Access to mHealth Interventions
Youth today face a high risk for serious mental health problems (e.g., suicidality, depression, anxiety), which is exacerbated by significant barriers to mental health care. mHealth interventions have been developed to address the needs of youth and their caregivers, but are underutilized. Lay health worker (LHWs) are individuals who use their lived-experience, language and/or culture to support patients and/or families in mental health service access and engagement. Through this project, we seek to increase mental health care access for youth by enhancing the dissemination of evidence-based mHealth interventions through the design of a training intervention for LHWs – Getting Access on the INternet (GAIN). Specifically, we will use human centered design (HCD) to adapt a mental health provider training intervention (developed by MPI Price K23MH124670) based on data from MPI Barnett (R01MH117123-02S1) on the needs of youth and their parents receiving LHW services.
MPI(s): Dr. Miya Barnett, Dr. Maggi Price
Black parents’ perceptions of the cultural fit of Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT)
Parent Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) is an efficacious, strengths-based parenting program (Eyberg et al., 1995) often cited as the gold standard for treating disruptive behavior disorders in young children. However, the efficacy of PCIT has primarily been studied with White families leaving a question as to the efficacy with Black families (Eyberg, 2005; Stevens et al., 2018). Given the documented disparity in attrition rates and lack of robust evidence base for Black families, the present study seeks to assess Black caregivers’ perceptions of the cultural fit of PCIT. Findings will inform whether a cultural adaptation of PCIT is warranted to improve efficacy of PCIT among Black families and culturally align PCIT treatment, and what sorts of adaptations may be most salient to improve acceptability among Black families. This study is in collaboration with Drs. Erica E. Coates and Emily Aron at Georgetown University School of Medicine and MedStar Georgetown University Hospital, and Dr. Felipa Chavez at Florida Institute of Technology. More information can be found here: https://psychiatry.georgetown.edu/black-early-stages-of-social-emotional-development-blessed-research-group/
PI: Kaela Farrise Beauvoir, MA, LMFT
Connecting Community and Liberation
Caregiver engagement in behavioral parent training (BPT) interventions can have a significant impact on treatment outcomes and implementation (Haine-Schlagel et al., 2022; Haine-Schlagel & Walsh, 2015). However, marginalized families often face barriers to engagement due to systemic inequities (Anderson et al., 2017; Castro-Ramirez et al., 2021; Le et al., 2022; Santos et al., 2023; Young & Rabiner, 2015). BPT models that include community health workers (CHWs) have shown promise in overcoming these barriers (Davis et al., 2022; Garcia et al., 2023; Salem et al., n.d.). Liberation psychology—a framework that aims to address systemic inequities through principles such as critical consciousness, empowerment, and collective action—appears to be reflected within CHW practices, though research on this connection is limited (Comas-Díaz & Rivera, 2020; Martín-Baró, 1996). This study aims to explore engagement strategies used by CHWs in Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT+CHW) to inform CHW training, supervision, and potential policy changes to address systemic inequities. This study is in collaboration with the Mailman Center for Child Development, Department of Pediatrics at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine and ConnectFamilias.
PI: Hanan Salem, MA
Conducting a Mental Health Training Needs Assessment for Promotores de Salud in Santa Barbara County
There is currently a paucity of accessible mental health services and care in many Latine and Spanish-speaking communities in the United States due to systemic barriers (Moreno et al., 2024; Pérez-Flores et al., 2024; Roller et al., 2023). Treatment providers have previously partnered with promotores de salud to address barriers and gaps that exist in resources and care among Spanish-speaking Latine communities (Barnett et al., 2018; Early et al., 2016). Promotores de salud are Latine community health workers who are typically members of the communities which they serve, and they use a wide range of interdisciplinary skills in their service in their communities (Flores et al., 2022). Developed in partnership with members of the local Santa Barbara Promotores Network (SBPN) based on an objective previously identified by the community, the aim of this study was to better understand the specific mental health training needs of promotores de salud in Santa Barbara County. Ultimately, researchers and participating promotores de salud aim to systematically build a mental health training to meet the needs identified in the present study.
PI: Juliana Ison, MA
Understanding Therapist, Intern, and Family Experiences with Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) in Santiago, Chile
Over forty years of research have demonstrated that behavioral parenting interventions, such as Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT), can effectively reduce child disruptive behavior disorders and risk for maltreatment. However, these parenting interventions have primarily been developed and implemented in high-income industrialized countries with middle-income families (Knerr et al., 2013; Mejia et al., 2012; Mejia et al., 2017). Additional considerations may be needed for implementing PCIT in Latin America broadly, and Chile specifically, given the considerable heterogeneity in Latine cultures and dialects. Additionally, research reveals an association between parental immigrant status and poorer treatment outcomes within parenting interventions (Derose et al., 2007; Ding & Hargraves, 2008). Immigrants often struggle with new cultural values emphasized by the country they live in, and ones transmitted by their parents and societal context of the country they were born in (Ainslie et al., 2013). The current study will compare effectiveness outcomes among Native and Immigrant parents in Santiago, Chile. Specifically, the current study will investigate a) How do parents, therapists, and clinical interns within Chile perceive the acceptability, feasibility, accessibility, and linguistic and cultural fit of PCIT given their views and context? b) What adaptations did/do therapists and clinical interns make to PCIT to fit their context? and c) How is PCIT impacting other services/families in Chile? This study is in collaboration with the PCIT clinic at the Fundación del Niñez in Santiago, Chile.
PI: Carolina Lechuga, B.A.
Previous Projects
Lay Health Worker Mobilization to Address Disparities in Parent Training Services
This previously NIMH funded project (K01 MH110608) sought to partner with community-based agencies to develop and evaluate an implementation intervention that leveraged Lay Health Workers (LHW), community members without formalized mental health training, to increase the entry into and engagement in evidence-based parent training programs for low-income Latinos as a strategy to reduce mental health disparities.
PCIT in Community Mental Health Survey
With the goal of understanding how to promote and accelerate the systematic uptake of evidence-based practices into community service settings to optimize public health, the PCIT survey project, a large-scale survey launched across the United States and internationally, aimed to investigate: 1) community based PCIT therapists’ attitudes towards and use of progress measures in children’s mental health treatment; 2) how therapists adapt PCIT to meet the needs of the clients they serve including Spanish-speaking clients; and, 3) therapists’ experiences engaging fathers in PCIT.
Teacher-Child Interaction Therapy
Teacher-Child Interaction Therapy: In partnership with the University of Miami Parent-Child Interaction Therapy Program, this project sought to evaluate the implementation of Teacher-Child Interaction Therapy, within a daycare center in Miami-Dade County, which served children with a range of developmental abilities. Funding was provided by The Children's Trust
Santa Barbara Resiliency Project
This prevention program sought to screen infants and parents for Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACES) and provide interventions within a pediatric setting to promote resiliency in children and families. This project was completed partnership with Santa Barbara Neighborhood Clinics and CALM. Support was provided by the J. S. Bower Foundation.
