Description

The purpose of the study is to test the preliminary efficacy, acceptability, accessibility, cost, and sustainability of an innovative, scalable model for improving young children's mental health services through a partnership with Head Start programs in urban and rural communities in Maryland. The study will use four transformational innovations for eliminating barriers to high quality mental health services for families of young children (2-5 years old) from low-income, under-resourced communities through a partnership with Head Start programs in urban and rural communities in Maryland: 1) test an adaptation of a validated group-based parenting skills and support program (Chicago Parent Program) developed in collaboration with African American and Hispanic parents from low-income communities, for use with individual families (CPPi) concerned about the participant's preschool children's mental health; 2) embed CPPi in a trusted community-based agency long committed to a 2-generation social service model of supporting families from low-income communities; 3) use human centered design strategies to co-create a CPPi referral and enrollment strategy with parents and staff that is welcoming, culturally appropriate, consistent with Head Start's service delivery processes, and eliminates the stigma associated with children receiving a psychiatric diagnosis (as is typically required for reimbursement in traditional child mental health settings); and 4) capitalize on the knowledge, experience, and holistic orientation of registered nurses (RNs) to implement CPPi in Head Start. Children's behavior problems collected at baseline and post-intervention data from the parent and teacher's perspectives. Parent satisfaction with CPPi is measured at post-intervention only.