CHILD AND ADOLESCENT SERVICES RESEARCH CENTER (CASRC)

Children'S Hospital Research Center, San Diego CA

Investigators

Linked publications & trials

Abstract

DESCRIPTION (Applicant's Abstract): Children's Hospital-San Diego and investigators from the Child and Adolescent Services Research Center (CASRC) seek support for five additional years to extend and expand our efforts to advance high quality research, methodological development, training, technical consultation and dissemination in child and adolescent mental health services. Over the next five years, the CASRC will pursue the following specific aims. (1) Strengthen and extend two programmatic areas of research, Examining Care for Diverse Populations arid Improving Care for Diverse Populations. (2) Demonstrate and develop methodological and statistical solutions to ethnical, design, and analytic issues faced by child mental health services researchers in the center and nationwide. (3) Provide training under a unique mentorship program for young post-doctoral students who will join the next cadre of child and adolescent mental health services researchers in this country. (4) Expand center technical assistance for and collaboration with families, mental health providers and managers in youth service sectors, as well as local, state, and national policy makers. (5) Expand the center's dissemination of research findings to the academic community, public and private providers, service system managers, advocacy groups, and public and private policy makers. The CASRC will use resources to provide administrative, fieldwork, and statistical support for developmental studies in the two core research programs. Methodological and substantive findings from these studies will lead to full-scale studies under external funding. The CASRC coordinates scientific work for an interdisciplinary group of senior and junior investigators in San Diego across four academic institutions and Children's Hospital, and over the next five years will include a substantial number of expert affiliated investigators and consultants from outstanding mental health research programs across the United States. CASRC collaborations will support the growing field of research on youth mental health services, resulting in increased scientific contribution to the critical organizational, intervention, and practice questions facing consumers, service providers and policy makers during a time of major changes in health care delivery systems.