Clinical Research Directory

Enhancing Preschool Children's Attention and Behaviour: Parent-Focused Program

This study aims to evaluate the feasibility and efficacy of the Building Regulation in Dual Generations (BRIDGE) program for caregivers with significant mental health concerns and preschool and young children (3-7 years old) with elevated attention and/or behavior problems. The BRIDGE program focuses on supporting parental psychological distress and improving young children's self-regulation (SR), thereby reducing their attention and behavior problems. The long-term goal of this work is to improve family well-being and social-emotional development for young children by implementing an accessible and scalable dual-regulation program. The investigators will achieve this through the following key objectives: 1. Assess the feasibility and accessibility of BRIDGE for preschool and young children (3-7 years old) with significant attention and behavior programs through questionnaires asking about attendance, satisfaction, and unmet needs. 2. Examine the efficacy of BRIDGE compared to control group at improving maternal mental health and child attention and behavioral difficulties in young children (primary outcomes). The investigators will also examine parenting stress (secondary outcome). 3. Identify predictors of academic readiness skills in preschool and young children. The investigators hypothesize that an increase in parental and child emotion-regulation skills and reduced attention, as well as behavioral problems, will lead to increased pre-academic skills in children.

Improving Mental Health in School-age Children Through the Kids' Empowerment Program (KEP)

Depression and anxiety are major challenges to American children's optimal mental health, with already high rates exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic. Yet help is beyond reach for many children who do not have access to care for reasons including a severely depleted cadre of professionally trained service providers, fear of stigma that goes along with a diagnosis, low access to clinics, and lack of insurance. Without help their problems will likely accelerate and become more deleterious to their development as adolescents and young adults. The current study aims to address the lack of care by providing a program in school classrooms that will reduce children's symptoms of depression and anxiety, as well as enhance their emotion regulation and coping skills. The mental health and adjustment of two groups of children are compared and evaluated at twelve week intervals in this clinical trial - those who first participate in the Kids' Empowerment Program (KEP) and a comparison group that participates in the program after the second evaluation. Once proven to be successful, the ultimate goal of the project is to disseminate the program throughout the State of Michigan and beyond, thereby providing children with tools that will empower them to be successful in managing emotional challenges throughout their life.

Children's Bipolar Network Treatment Trial I

This is a naturalistic treatment and follow-up study of youth with bipolar spectrum disorders (BSDs) across four US sites of The Childhood Bipolar Network (CBN). CBN sites have expertise in diagnosing, assessing, and treating BSDs in youth. The primary aims of this study are to (1) identify and reliably diagnose youth (ages 9 to 19 yrs) with full bipolar disorder (BD) and BSDs, and (2) examine predictors (e.g., mood instability, inflammatory marker C-reactive protein) of clinical outcome over a 12 month period. Participating youth will initially complete a screening that includes a structured diagnostic interview and a baseline blood draw to measure inflammatory processes. Youth with BSD and parents (80 families) will be asked to participate in multiple follow up research visits with interviews, rating instruments, and questionnaires. Per established CBN guidelines, study psychiatrists will provide and track medication management and sites will also track psychosocial treatments. This study ultimately aims to further understanding of best practice pediatric BSD psychiatric and psychosocial treatments and development of a standardized and validated set of clinical tools for patient assessment, diagnosis, and tracking.

Co-production and Feasibility RCT of Intervention to Improve the Mental Health of Children With a Social Worker

Feasibility RCT to ask: Can the investigators coproduce, with parent collaborators, a new service, Infant Parent Support (IPS), to improve the mental health of children with a social worker? Can the investigators test the feasibility of an RCT of IPS compared with services as usual?

Reintegration of Children From Institutions in Azerbaijan

To prevent mental health problems among 7-12 children from orphanages reunited with their biological or extended families in Azerbaijan, this study will refine and test three evidence-based intervention approaches (a) family strengthening intervention; b) mental health screening and referral for treatment; and c) economic empowerment in the form of Child Development Accounts. The study will use a randomized experimental design and participating families will be assigned to receive the family strengthening, mental health, or economic interventions. Eligible and consenting 400 child-caregivers dyads will complete baseline, 1-year, and 2-year follow-up measures. Additionally, post-intervention qualitative interviews (n=60) will solicit narrative information about participants' and services providers' reactions and experiences with each intervention component and will provide more comprehensive evidence about the interventions' efficacy. It is hypothesized that by enhancing children's coping skills, strengthening child-parent relationships, and reducing parental stress, an intervention can help children demonstrate fewer symptoms of: a) disturbances of attachment; b) internalizing problems (depressive or anxious mood), c) externalizing problems (aggressive, delinquent, or disruptive behaviors); d) post-traumatic stress; and e) lower prevalence of diagnoses (e.g. depression, anxiety, PTSD, oppositional-defiant disorder, and reactive attachment disorder).

Vulnerability/Resilience Factors Influencing the Developmental Trajectories and Adaptive Methods of Children and Adolescents in Child Welfare System.

Assess the prevalence of medico-psychological characteristics at the time of placement (M0), their appearance / disappearance and during the two years following placement (M12 and M24) by age group in children / adolescents in Child Protective Services and placed full-time in the structures of Seine-Maritime and Eure as well as in nursery in Le Havre or Rouen