Lawrence Palinkas

The investigators will document if and how research evidence is used by child welfare agencies to make clinical and administrative decisions.

Recent federal legislation calls for child welfare agencies and Medicaid to develop mechanisms for assuring youth in foster care receive appropriate health and mental health services, including medications.

California and several counties in Ohio are currently undergoing a large, federally funded trial investigating an attempt to implement an evidence-based, statewide foster care program (Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care, or MTFC) with the help of Community Development Teams (CDT).

This award builds on an NIH-funded cluster-randomized trial to test whether providing implementation support through community development teams impacts a county’s decision to adopt the Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care, an evidence-based child welfare program. With this award, Palinkas ...