Patient Population: Caregivers/Providers

Implementation Toolkit to Enhance EBP Among Marginalized Families (I-TEAM)

Although the efficacy of early intervention (EI) for autistic children and their families has been established, many marginalized families with diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds still report inequitable access to evidence-based practices (EBP). The proposed research addresses three aims including: AIM 1. Identify facilitators and barriers of EBP implementation among marginalized families of young autistic children in EI; AIM 2. Develop an implementation toolkit with a focus on capacity building of EI providers to implement EBP with cultural responsiveness; and AIM 3. Examine the feasibility, acceptability, and appropriateness of this toolkit through a pilot trial using RUBI behavioral parent training program.

Parent and teacher engagement as an undervalued implementation determinant

The proposed research addresses three important objectives (1) complete a scoping review to map determinants of teacher implementation of evidence-based practices for child behavior in preschool , (2) identify strategies to improve teacher implementation through a series of casual pathway diagrams, and (3) conceptualize and operationalize strategies with stakeholders to increase feasibility.

Parent Educator Action Response (PEAR)

Through a community-partnered approach we will develop and deliver a parent-teacher relationship intervention at local preschools that serve under-represented minority families.

Empowering caregivers of persons with Lewy Body Dementias using a virtual peer-to-peer intervention

Lewy body dementias (LBD), a term referring to both dementia with Lewy bodies and Parkinson’s disease dementia, are the second most common type of degenerative dementia in older adults. These are complex disorders in which patients may exhibit disruptive behaviors that make caregiving challenging. Compared to other types of dementias, caregivers of people with LBD report higher stress and more severe depressive symptoms. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has multiplied the challenges that caregivers of persons with dementia face in providing care for their loved ones. As such, support interventions for caregivers of persons with LBD are urgently needed.

In this study, we will adapt our online intervention for older adults with frailty to target the unique needs of caregivers of people with LBD. We will conduct participatory design sessions with potential users to determine their needs and priorities specific to LBD and deploy the re-designed intervention in a pilot study focused on usability and efficacy. Through this newly tailored support system, we aim to bolster the health of caregivers as well as their ability to assist care partners living with LBD.

This intervention could potentially be used in conjunction with usual care and/or as a stand-alone module in emergent circumstances, such as the current pandemic, when routine professional interventions may not be readily available. By fostering the development of a community-driven online support system, this project will begin to lay the groundwork for promoting resilience within families affected by the behavioral challenges of dementia.

Expanding culturally responsive care for children and families in Washington State

The Expanding Culturally Responsive Care initiative, a new project funded through a 2022 Washington State legislative proviso, aims to strengthen the lived experience behavioral health workforce and create a culturally responsive care curriculum for statewide implementation in Medicaid-serving organizations. This initiative was developed in response to Washington State’s urgent need for more culturally responsive, effective public behavioral health services–services that many families do not currently have access to. Ideally, this initiative will allow for more families to receive care that promotes true healing, mental health wellness and health equity. Curriculum and strategy development will be done through a participatory, collaborative co-design process with broad ranging input from across the state, and will center community voice, transparency, and accountability throughout all stages of the process. This project is part of a broader Leadership Initiative for Quality.

WA state parent network to prevent youth suicide and improve student mental health

Rates of suicide and mental health challenges among youth have never been higher. An essential part of youth well-being, mental health and suicide prevention is that parents and other caregivers of youth are prepared to support their children in these challenging times. Asking IS Caring is a parent-caregiver network started in Eastern Washington to provide community education, peer to peer support to families struggling with youth suicide behavior/ death, and input to districts implementing mental health programming and supports. This grant will help put into place essential infrastructure to further develop and to sustain the parent-caregiver network as well as to evaluate programming stemming from the network’s activities. Asking Is Caring is supported by a curriculum designed to offer parents-caregivers an invitation to be present with their child. It offers opportunities for participants to problem solve, and questions they can ask of their child, the parent’s friends, and of themselves. Asking IS Caring provides practical steps to build protection from suicide in the home.

Developing a resource toolkit for clinician survivors of suicide loss

This project will develop a resource toolkit for clinician survivors of suicide loss. For clinicians, the death of a patient by suicide is a dreaded event and can be more distressing than death and dying encountered in other clinical situations. In response to patient suicide, some clinician survivors experience emotional and psychological distress that may reach clinical levels and negative and sometimes persisting effects on professional practice. Building on existing reference materials, we will develop a toolkit of resources to guide and support faculty, clinical staff and trainee clinician-survivors affiliated with the department hospitals. These resources would address educational, emotional, administrative and spiritual needs of clinician-survivors.

Developing a digital platform to deliver family intervention for psychosis

The World Health Organization ranks psychotic disorders as the third most disabling health condition worldwide. Eleven million Americans will experience psychosis during their lifetime, and roughly 60 million Americans have a loved one affected by psychosis. Research affirms that psychotherapeutic interventions can help family caregivers develop skills to better connect and communicate with their loved one, which corresponds to better treatment engagement, symptom improvement, fewer hospitalizations, improved functioning, reduced substance use, reduced mortality and overall improvement in quality of life for the individual with psychosis. Family interventions are therefore critical to a holistic and effective clinical response to a psychotic disorder. Nevertheless, a recent federal investigation found that fewer than 2% of US families caring for someone with psychosis had received a family intervention for psychosis.

Psychosis REACH (Recovery by Enabling Adult Carers at Home) is a family intervention for psychosis co-developed by faculty in the UW Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences that delivers psychoeducation and illness management skills training to family caregivers in the community. To enhance broad and equitable access to tens of millions of families and caregivers, this project will develop “Psychosis iREACH,” a digital platform that uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology to deliver Psychosis REACH to diverse families navigating psychosis. A virtual coach will assist families to access self-management skills practice, automated self-assessment, tailored training goals and individualized learning trajectories whenever and wherever families need the support. Psychosis iREACH represents a multidisciplinary collaboration among faculty in the School of Medicine, School of Nursing and School of Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics.

Beliefs and Attitudes for Successful Implementation in Schools (BASIS)

The goal of this study is to adapt and test the feasibility and potential efficacy of a theory-driven pre-implementation intervention to address individual-level barriers to evidence-based practice (EBP) implementation – Beliefs and Attitudes for Successful Implementation in Schools (BASIS) – designed to improve school-based mental health providers’ implementation of EBP. The BASIS-T project will develop a teacher-focused pre-implementation motivation enhancement intervention that will be tested in the context of universal social, emotional, and behavioral program implementation.