Partnership Research Projects

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Partnership Research Projects to Promote
Childrens Health and Education
Sharon Landesman Ramey, Ph.D. Susan H. Mayer
Professor of Child and Family Studies Director,
GUCHE
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Key Features and Themes of Research Partnerships

• Partnerships created to meet separate and common
  interests
• Research provides practical, timely, usable
  information
• Interventions and programs based on scientific
  evidence and community expertise
• Health disparities and educational inequities are
  intertwined, complex, and amenable to change

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Major Questions about Health Disparities and
Educational Inequities

• What is the relationship between health and
  education?
• How to apply new findings in the real world about
  proven ways to prevent and treat major
  problems?
• To what extent do research studies address the
  most pressing issues identified by communities?

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My Current NICHD Projects in the District of
Columbia

• The First Time Parenting Project
• Prevention of Child Neglect Project
• Child Community Health Network (CCHN) Planning
  Study
• Inter-pregnancy Intervals Study (Phase 3)
• Young Childrens Perceptions of Social Support
  and School (pending)

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The First Time Parenting Project

• Focuses on everyday life of first-time parents
  and their babies
• Participants are teen mothers, adult mothers with
  low resources, and adult mothers with high
  resources (from same ethnic/cultural groups)
• Innovative methods to study precursors and
  predictors of responsive parenting versus
  neglectful parenting and child neglect
• Part of a 4-city study, guided by new ideas about
  how parents perceive their own lives and choices

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Prevention of Neglect Project

• Randomized controlled trial of preventive
  supports to high-risk mothers
• Innovative approach combines strategies that have
  proven effective in other studies
• Components include health and safety, responsive
  parenting, early language and literacy, cell
  phone connections, video feedback, friends and
  family members (not just moms), decision-making
  for families

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Child Community Health Network (CCHN) Planning
Study

• NICHD initiative in 5 sites to foster
  community-university research collaborations
• Topic Health disparities in mothers, fathers,
  and young children
• Cross-disciplinary approach to studying
  pre-pregnancy influences on pregnancy outcomes
  and child and parent well-being
• Major new themes stress, racism, resilience and
  supports, biological mediators of individual and
  community levels of influence

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Inter-pregnancy Intervals Study

• Teen parents
• Builds upon new findings from focus groups and
  preferences of participants
• Offers multiple social, recreational, and
  informational supports in the community
• Adopts cell-phone connections as means of
  frequent and responsive assistance
• Goal to extend inter-pregnancy intervals
  consistent with familys own goals

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Young Childrens Perceptions of Social Support
and School

• Historically, children left out of the equation
  in studying what is important in their lives
• We created new ways to collect sensitive and
  valid data from children My Family and Friends
  Mi familia y Mis Amigos and What I Think of
  School Que pienso de La Escuela
• Findings from large-scale, multi-cultural studies
  reveal that children see and know things that are
  highly predictive about their futures things
  that parents and teachers do NOT always know

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Proposed new research on childrens perceptions
of their lives

• Goals to improve the methods available to
  identify important sources of support and
  conflict, and to include even preschool-age
  children and to be able to study parent-child
  agreements versus differences in what is
  happening and how to improve things
• Applications pre-K and the transition to school,
  child well-being, prevention of turmoil and
  unhappiness, strengthening natural kinship
  networks, improving health care-family
  communications

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My other partnership projects

• Medicaid waiver to provide mental health supports
  to prevent loss of employment (Medicaid)
• Center on Trauma and the Community (NIMH)
• Pre-K and Head Start Curriculum Comparison Study
  (Institute of Educational Sciences)
• Innovative Training Approaches to Improve Child
  Care Quality (Child Care Bureau)
• Early Reading First Evaluations (DOE)

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Guiding Principles for Partnerships

• Joint community and university development of
  programs
• Research must benefit everyone in partnership
• Long-term commitment (not just 1 project)
• Belief that partnership will make both the
  community and university better places
• Open user-friendly datasets, sharing of funds,
  plans to handle likely problems/differences

Ramey Ramey, 1997
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Human Dynamics of PartnershipsLikely Challenges

• Perception that resources are not fairly
  distributed
• Feelings that one or more partnership members not
  honoring their word
• Threats to continuity of partnership after early
  courting phases
• External political and cultural threats
• Issues of credit, blame, info-sharing

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A Conceptual Framework for Interventions to
Improve Child Outcomes

• Helps to frame the important topics for
  everyone to think about
• Allows everyone to contribute ideas, solutions,
  data collection at different levels
• Builds upon latest scientific findings about the
  fundamental inter-connectedness of health and
  education, mind and body, individual and group
  well-being

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Applied Biosocial Contextual Development
(ABCD) A Conceptual Framework for Health and
Education Interventions
COMMUNITY CONTEXT e.g., Location,
Demography/Diversity, Economic and Political
Climate, Infrastructure, Neighborhood
OUTCOMES
EDUCATION SUPPORTS
SOCIAL SUPPORT SERVICES

• At school
• At home
• In the
• community

• Instrumental
• Informational
• Emotional
• Affiliative

COMMUNITY RESOURCES
Social Child Care Supports
Supports for Learning
School System
Health Services
Physical Supports
HEALTH PROMOTION HEALTH CARE
Basic Academic, Social Skills
Survival Resources

• Health care
• Healthy lifestyle
• behaviors

Health Nutrition
Comm- unication Skills
STRENGTHS AND NEEDS Child Family School
Health Community
Safety Security
Social Support
SOCIAL-EMOTIONAL
PHYSICAL RISKS
Appraisal of Self
Motivation Values

• Crime violence
• Toxins
• Unsafe
• environments
• Abuse

• Poor childcare/
• education
• Poor parenting
• practices
• Neglect

BIOLOGY PRIOR EXPERIENCES e.g.,
Intergenerational Influences, Individual
Biology, Previous Child and Family Experience
SOCIETAL

• External threats
• Lack of information
• Economic turmoil
• Racism

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STRENGTHS AND NEEDS Child Family School
Health Community
BIOLOGY PRIOR EXPERIENCES e.g.,
Intergenerational Influences, Individual Biology,
Previous Child and Family Experience
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OUTCOMES
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OUTCOMES
PERSONAL CONSTRUCTS

• Ethics/Values
• Engagement
• Enjoyment

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PROMOTIVE PROCESSES
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HARMFUL FACTORS STRESSORS
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PROMOTIVE PROCESSES
HARMFUL FACTORS STRESSORS
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Applied Biosocial Contextual Development
(ABCD) A Conceptual Framework for Health and
Education Interventions
COMMUNITY CONTEXT e.g., Location,
Demography/Diversity, Economic and Political
Climate, Infrastructure, Neighborhood
OUTCOMES
EDUCATION SUPPORTS
SOCIAL SUPPORT SERVICES

• At school
• At home
• In the
• community

• Instrumental
• Informational
• Emotional
• Affiliative

COMMUNITY RESOURCES
Social Child Care Supports
Supports for Learning
School System
Health Services
Physical Supports
HEALTH PROMOTION HEALTH CARE
Basic Academic, Social Skills
Survival Resources

• Health care
• Healthy lifestyle
• behaviors

Health Nutrition
Comm- unication Skills
STRENGTHS AND NEEDS Child Family School
Health Community
Safety Security
Social Support
SOCIAL-EMOTIONAL
PHYSICAL RISKS
Appraisal of Self
Motivation Values

• Crime violence
• Toxins
• Unsafe
• environments
• Abuse

• Poor childcare/
• education
• Poor parenting
• practices
• Neglect

BIOLOGY PRIOR EXPERIENCES e.g.,
Intergenerational Influences, Individual
Biology, Previous Child and Family Experience
SOCIETAL

• External threats
• Lack of information
• Economic turmoil
• Racism