Research

Research Project

Early Care and Education

Preschool Development Grant: Child Care Deserts & Family Care Providers

Project Description Family child care homes (FCCHs) are an important part of the early care and education system in North Carolina. While they make up only about a quarter of licensed care providers, they provide a critical service especially to families that work non-traditional hours, reside in rural communities or speak primary languages other than…

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Adolescence to Adulthood
Families and Parenting
Social Emotional Health and Well-Being

Risk and Resilience in Ukraine: Individual, Family, and Community Predictors of Adolescent and Young Adult Adjustment

This research project will collect data from youth enrolled in universities across Ukraine during the winter of 2023. Data will include changes in adjustment, wellbeing, and optimism, along with substance use. Data will provide insights into how best to support the mental health of young people during a global crisis.

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Child Welfare
Social Emotional Health and Well-Being

Substance Use Treatment & Access to Resources Study

Evaluation of the Substance use Treatment and Access to Resources and Supports (STARS) program for pregnant women who have a substance use issue and babies who have been exposed to substances.

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Child Welfare
Families and Parenting

Positive Parenting App Study

Project Description This study of the postive parenting app tests the feasibility and effectiveness of a mobile-based app intervention designed to enhance home visiting by providing in-the-moment parenting tips with the goal of increasing healthy parent-child interactions leading to resiliency in high-risk children. Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) profoundly influence brain and behavioral development and long-term…

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Adolescence to Adulthood
Race Equity

Advancing Equity in Adolescent Health through Evidence-Based Teen Pregnancy Prevention Programs and Services

This project expands reach, builds capacity, and scales up evidence-based programs offering positive youth development and sexuality education to address health disparities in the most vulnerable areas across rural Eastern North Carolina.

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Adolescence to Adulthood
Poverty and Inequality
Social Emotional Health and Well-Being

STEPS: Study of Teen Experiences that Promote Success

This project aims to advance research on the relationship between economic well-being, wealth, adolescent functioning and mental health.

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Child Welfare
Families and Parenting
Social Emotional Health and Well-Being

Durham Navigation Study

The Durham Navigation Study is a randomized control trial to evaluate the impact of Community Navigation on outcomes for young children and their families.

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Adolescence to Adulthood
COVID-19
Families and Parenting

Childhood, Adolescence, and Covid-Related Risk and Protective Factors in the Development of Adjustment in Early Adulthood Across Cultures

Building on the ongoing Parenting Across Cultures longitudinal study that began in 2008, this project will continue to follow participants in their early to mid-twenties.

read more about Childhood, Adolescence, and Covid-Related Risk and Protective Factors in the Development of Adjustment in Early Adulthood Across Cultures
K-12 Education

BELLA Online: ESL and Classroom Teachers Working Together With Children and Families

Project goal is to design, develop, and test an online professional development program called Bridging English Language Learning and Academics (BELLA) for improving teacher and student outcomes for working with English Learners (ELs).

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Adolescence to Adulthood

The Impact of Mental Health Therapy on Job Creation and Business Outcomes in Youth and Female-Led Enterprises

This study will evaluate the impact of cognitive behavior therapy delivered through virtual reality on job creation and business outcomes in youth and female-led enterprises in Nigeria via improvements in depression, stress, and anxiety.

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Poverty and Inequality

Net Worth Poverty and Children’s Development

This study examines how net worth poverty – or household’s whose wealth levels fall below one-quarter of the federal poverty line – is associated with children’s cognitive and behavioral development. Most children who are net worth poor are not income poor, meaning that these economically vulnerable group of children have been conventionally overlooked in conversations about poverty.

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Adolescence to Adulthood
Families and Parenting

Child and Adolescent Predictors of Young Adults’ and Their Parents’ Primals in Nine Countries

This study provides an unprecedented opportunity to understand whether and how primals in early adulthood are predicted by childhood and adolescent experiences and how parents’ primals are related to their young adult children’s primals in the most diverse long-term longitudinal study ever conducted.

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Early Care and Education

North Carolina Infant Toddler Cost Feasibility Study – Parent and Provider Panels

Together with the Child Trends, researchers from CCFP are gathering feedback from parents and providers on what they think makes a high quality early care and education environment for infants and toddlers.

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COVID-19
Social Emotional Health and Well-Being

Survey of Health Trends (SEHAT)

Study of children’s and adolescents’ trajectories of mental health, immunization, and primary healthcare utilization in the aftermath of the COVID pandemic. The research is being conducted in India, where one-sixth of the world’s population lives.

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Poverty and Inequality
Race Equity
Social Emotional Health and Well-Being

Examining Medicaid and the Nutrition Program for Women and Children to Understand How to Design Social Policy to Achieve Health Equity

This research will provide an in-depth view of variation in state-level policy rules and program administration across WIC and Medicaid in three states and illuminate the consequences for policy beneficiaries’ ability to access benefits, engage with programs, and function as democratic citizens.

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COVID-19
K-12 Education

Study of Out-of-School Time Coordinating Entities Response to Covid-19

This study examines the essential nature of coordinating entities during a crisis by comparing the experiences of out-of-school time (OST) stakeholders in cities with coordinating entities to OST stakeholders in cities that may have elements of an OST system (e.g., common data system) but not a coordinating entity.

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Poverty and Inequality

Local Criminal Justice Reform Efforts: Effects on Employment, Self-Sufficiency, and Family Well-Being

This study is evaluating a local program in Durham, NC, that waives the fees of those who have a suspended license due to failure to pay, in order to discover how reinstating drivers’ licenses can reduce barriers to employment and self-sufficiency.

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Adolescence to Adulthood
Race Equity

Developing and Evaluating Progressive Prosecution in Durham, NC

The purpose of this project is to support the development and evaluation of new evidence-based plea bargaining policies and practices in the Durham District Attorney’s Office.

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Child Welfare
Families and Parenting

Henderson-Polk Family Life Survey

The Henderson-Polk Family Life Survey is an impact evaluation of the Family Connects home visiting program, when delivered using a hybrid telehealth model.

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Adolescence to Adulthood

Great Smoky Mountains Study of Rural Aging

Project to augment the longitudinal Great Smoky Mountains Study (GSMS) to create a national data resource, the Great Smoky Mountains Study of Rural Aging (GSMS-RA), for the study of early determinants of the aging experience in a rural context. The GSMS began collecting data on children, now participants are entering their 40s.

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Adolescence to Adulthood
COVID-19
Social Emotional Health and Well-Being

Parenting Across Cultures: COVID-19

This project builds on the ongoing Parenting Across Cultures (PAC) longitudinal study that began in 2008 with recruitment of a sample of 1,417 8-year-old children and their mothers and fathers from nine countries. In 2020, COVID-19-related questions were added to assess behavioral and emotional functioning in relation to the rapidly-evolving situation in each country’s response to the pandemic.

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COVID-19
Poverty and Inequality

WIC, SNAP and Medicaid Participation in North Carolina

Investigate the barriers and facilitators of applying for, receiving, and redeeming safety net program benefits, including the Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in North Carolina. Including before and during COVID-19.

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Poverty and Inequality
Race Equity
Social Emotional Health and Well-Being

Children of Color in the (Southern) Welfare State: How Politics, Poverty, and Social Policy Implementation Shape Child Development in the Rural South

Thia study draws from quantitative and ethnographic data across three rural counties to examine how the distinct features of rural southern communities inform organizational practices of public welfare agencies in ways that reinforce racial inequality and negatively influences family processes and adolescent development outcomes. This study examines how rural contexts shape access to four prominent safety net programs: Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Medicaid, the Child Care Subsidy, and Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF).

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Early Care and Education

Families & Communities Rising Evaluation

CCFP researchers are working with Families and Communities Rising to select, implement, and evaluate a school readiness assessment at their Head Start sites across Durham and Orange Counties.

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Adolescence to Adulthood

Dimensions of Child Adversity and Health Risk Behaviors in Young Adulthood

The objectives of this study are to understand mechanisms in the global context through which exposure to different types of adverse experiences in childhood increases risk of adverse behavioral and psychosocial outcomes into early adulthood.

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COVID-19
Early Care and Education

Preschool Development Grant, Birth Through Five – Needs Assessment

Together with the Hunt Institute, researchers from CCFP are implementing a collaborative partnership to support NC DHHS’ Division of Child Development and Early Education in completing updates to North Carolina’s Preschool Development (Birth Through Five) Needs Assessment, including information on the impact of COVID-19 on the child care and early education experiences of children and families.

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Early Care and Education
Families and Parenting
Poverty and Inequality

Baby’s First Years Study

Baby’s First Years is a pathbreaking study of the causal impact of monthly, unconditional cash gifts to low-income mothers and their children in the first three years of the child’s life. The cash gifts are funded through charitable foundations. The study will identify whether reducing poverty can affect early childhood development and the family processes that support children’s development.

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Early Care and Education

North Carolina Preschool Development Grant

Project Description CCFP researchers have partnered with colleagues at The Hunt Institute and Child Trends on multiple projects for North Carolina’s Preschool Development Grant, within the North Carolina Division of Child Development and Early Education. The Preschool Development Grant Birth through Five (PDG) is administered by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration…

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Child Welfare
Social Emotional Health and Well-Being

Early Identification and Prevention of Child Maltreatment: Cross-Agency Processes and Outcomes

Local social service agencies and health care providers routinely make decisions regarding a child’s risk for maltreatment. Yet, providers have limited information to guide their decisions and rarely receive feedback regarding the children’s long-term outcomes.

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Early Care and Education
K-12 Education

Factors in Persistence Versus Fadeout of Early Childhood Intervention Impacts

This project seeks to understand whether, for whom, and how the effects of successful early childhood school readiness interventions are sustained across a child’s development.

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Child Welfare
Social Emotional Health and Well-Being

Identifying Opportunities to Prevent Child Maltreatment in the Health and Social Services Systems

Developing a better understanding of the types of interactions that at-risk children and their families have with professionals who could recognize risk factors and direct families to resources to help prevent child maltreatment.

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Child Welfare
Early Care and Education
Social Emotional Health and Well-Being

Evaluation of the Responsive Early Access for Durham’s Young Children (READY)

Evaluation of a unified strategy to early childhood development called Responsive Early Access for Durham’s Young Children (READY). READY was created by a Durham-based nonprofit in partnership with early care and education, pediatrics, family support, mental health, and homeless services organizations and professionals.

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Child Welfare
Social Emotional Health and Well-Being

Partnering for Excellence

This project is an evaluation of Benchmarks’ Partnering for Excellence (PFE), a model that seeks to improve the well-being of children and families in contact with the child welfare system and reduce the need for higher end behavioral services through a more trauma-informed community, which can result in reduces in behavioral healthcare expenditures.

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Adolescence to Adulthood
Families and Parenting
Poverty and Inequality
Social Emotional Health and Well-Being

Intergenerational Persistence of Treatment Effects

Many childhood interventions target low-income and high-risk children, with evidence that some early interventions improve adult health and wellbeing. This study asks whether children who benefit from early interventions grow up to become better parents and, subsequently, have children who experience fewer health problems, educational challenges, and emotional problems.

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K-12 Education
Social Emotional Health and Well-Being

N.C. Resilience and Learning

The North Carolina Resilience and Learning Project is a partnership with the Public School Forum of North Carolina to promote and support trauma-informed schools across the state. The project team works closely with districts and schools to provide professional learning and ongoing coaching to meet school-specific needs and goals. Our work aims to create systems-level change by shifting the culture and mindset of an entire school so that staff begin to see a child’s behavior in the context of their life experiences, in consideration of possible trauma history or stress response system triggers.

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Adolescence to Adulthood
Families and Parenting
Social Emotional Health and Well-Being

Childhood Risk Factors and Young Adult Competence

Using the most diverse, prospectively studied, multi-national sample to date, this study will generate empirical findings to develop a model of child- and family-level mediators and culture-level moderators of the role of childhood risk factors and young adult competence and maladaptation. Cross-cultural comparisons will inform domestic models of young adult maladaptation.

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Families and Parenting
Poverty and Inequality
Race Equity

Poverty and Economic Self Sufficiency Among Hispanic Families with Children

The National Research Center on Hispanic Children & Families is a collaboration between Child Trends and three university based research partners and serves as a hub of research-based information on low-income Hispanic children and families.

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COVID-19
Families and Parenting
Poverty and Inequality
Race Equity
Social Emotional Health and Well-Being

Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Economic and Psychological Well-Being of Hourly Service Workers and their Families

Around 1,000 hourly service workers with young children in a large US city were sampled with an initial focus on work schedule unpredictability and worker and family well-being. The data collection then shifted with the emergence of COVID-19 to reflect pandemic-related concerns such as food insecurity, job loss, income, and access to pandemic-specific and broader social safety net policy supports.

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Adolescence to Adulthood
Families and Parenting
Social Emotional Health and Well-Being

Child Development Project- Optimizing Prevention of Costly Adult Outcomes

Project Description This longitudinal study is a collaboration among Auburn University, Indiana University, and Duke University that investigates children’s social development and adjustment by following 585 children from two cohorts recruited in consecutive years, 1987 and 1988, from Nashville, Tenn.; Knoxville, Tenn.; and Bloomington, Ind. The children were recruited the year before they entered kindergarten; the…

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Child Welfare

Reducing the Need for Out-of-home Placements: A Randomized Controlled Trial to Examine the Effects of Family Centered Treatment on Well-Being Outcomes and Public Dollar Costs

This project is a state-wide randomized controlled study of Family Centered Treatment. The project is implemented in partnership with the Family Centered Treatment Foundation (FCTF), a nonprofit organization serving over 60 sites across 10 U.S. states. FCTF provides licensing, training, and oversight of the Family Centered Treatment (FCT) model to human service organizations.

read more about Reducing the Need for Out-of-home Placements: A Randomized Controlled Trial to Examine the Effects of Family Centered Treatment on Well-Being Outcomes and Public Dollar Costs
Early Care and Education
Families and Parenting
K-12 Education

Durham Children’s Initiative Evaluation

Project Description The Durham Children’s Initiative (DCI) (formerly East Durham Children’s Initiative) is a place-based, nonprofit organization that supports children and families from cradle to college or career. Established in 2010, DCI’s vision is that all children in Durham graduate from high school ready for college or career. To achieve this vision, DCI provides children…

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Early Care and Education
Social Emotional Health and Well-Being

Effects of the Incredible Years Classroom and Teacher Combined Interventions on Preschool Children’s Self-Regulation and Academic Achievement

Project Description Evaluation of the Incredible Years Dinosaur Classroom Prevention Program (IY Dina) paired with teacher training in Incredible Years Teacher Classroom Management (IYT). IY Dina is a universal social-emotional curriculum that trains children in the skills they need for self-regulation, improved school behavior, and enhanced social competence. IYT targets teachers’ use of effective classroom…

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Child Welfare
Families and Parenting

Family Connects for Get Ready Guilford Initiative

Project Description This effort will expand the operational capacity of the Guilford County Department of Public Health to implement the Family Connects model in support of Phase One of the Get Ready Guilford Initiative. Project Goals The overall goal of the Get Ready Guilford Initiative is to promote the health, development, and school readiness of…

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Child Welfare
Families and Parenting

Guilford Collaborative Toward Universal Reach and Impact During the Prenatal Period

Project Description Over the course of 18 months, Family Connects and Nurse-Family Partnership proposed to develop, field test, and implement an innovative approach to reaching and serving all pregnant women in three zip codes in Guilford County, NC. Project Goals Our goal is to have an impact on the entire population of women giving birth…

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K-12 Education

Effects of Classroom Management Training on Early Learning Skills (Incredible Years for Teachers)

Project Description Principal Investigator Desiree W. Murray, co-Investigator David Rabiner, and research staff investigated whether the Incredible Years Teacher Program (IYT) had an impact on K-2 students’ attention, social-emotional functioning, and academic achievement. The Incredible Years Training Series, developed by Carolyn Webster-Stratton, is a multi-component evidence-based intervention for young children including parent training, teacher training,…

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Adolescence to Adulthood
Social Emotional Health and Well-Being

Brain Imaging the Effects of High Sensation Value Anti-Drug PSAs

Project Description The objective of this research was to explore the use of state-of-the-science brain imaging and analysis procedures in evaluating the effectiveness of Public Service Announcements (PSAs) used in the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign. This objective was accomplished by pursuing three specific aims: 1) identifying and cataloging features of youth-focused PSAs featured in…

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Adolescence to Adulthood
Poverty and Inequality
Race Equity

How Do State Social Assistance Policies and Practices Impact Utilization and Outcomes Among Hispanic Low-Income Youth?

Project Description Hispanic youth represent a growing proportion of America’s future workforce. The vast majority are U.S.-born and raised in income-poor households, yet little is understood about the influence of social and income security policy on their well-being. Despite eligibility, Hispanic families are less likely to receive income assistance than their peers. Resulting differences in…

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Adolescence to Adulthood
Families and Parenting

Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Adolescent Well-Being

Project Description There is very limited cross-cultural evidence on the relationship among parenting practices, children’s emotions, children’s social behaviors, and children’s general well-being. I have teamed up with a young scholar, Dr. Laura DiGuinta, in Italy to examine how culture influences these factors. We collected data from 460 11- to 12-year-old children and their parents…

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Families and Parenting
K-12 Education

Evaluation of School-Based Child and Family Support Teams Initiative (100 Schools Project)

Project Description This project evaluated the School Based Child and Family Support Team (CFST) Initiative, which provides appropriate family-centered, strengths-based community services and supports to those children at risk of school failure or out-of-home placements as a result of physical, social, legal, emotional or developmental factors that affect their academic performance. Early results indicated that…

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Adolescence to Adulthood
Families and Parenting

The Intergeneration Effects of Criminal Justice Policies on Substance Use Crimes

Project Description The harms of substance use and the specific public policies implemented for combating substance use are associated with societal costs estimated at over $500 billion annually in the U.S. alone. Prevailing debates on public policies for curbing substance use focus on the relative merits of employing a public health approach- awareness, prevention, and…

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Child Welfare
Families and Parenting

Improving Child Welfare Outcomes through Systems of Care

Project Description The Center partnered with the N.C. Division of Social Services, county-level departments of social services, other contractors and families for the project. Analysis of data from both the SOC and Multiple Response System (MRS) evaluations has shown that implementing MRS and SOC simultaneously not only enhanced the implementation of MRS, but also provided positive…

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Child Welfare
Families and Parenting

Developing, Implementing and Evaluating a Comprehensive Family Assessment to Improve Child Welfare Outcomes in Alamance County, NC

Project Description The Children’s Bureau awarded the Alamance County Department of Social Services (ACDSS) one of five national grants to demonstrate the use of Comprehensive Family Assessments (CFA) to improve child welfare outcomes. The Center for Child and Family Policy partnered with ACDSS to develop, implement, and evaluate an evidence-based model for conducting comprehensive family assessments,…

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Adolescence to Adulthood

Decision-Making in Everyday Life

In collaboration with Laurence Steinberg of Temple University and grant funding from the Jacobs Foundation, Decision-Making in Everyday Life was an assessment of judgment, decision-making, and psychosocial development from over 350 participants in Durham and Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The measures used were also being administered in China, Colombia, Cyprus, India, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, the Philippines, Sweden, and Thailand. The assessment included questions about several aspects of development that affect the choices young people make, including choices to engage in risky and antisocial behavior. These aspects of development included impulsivity, foresight, sensation-seeking, planning, and reward salience.

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Social Emotional Health and Well-Being

QuitAssist™ External Evaluation Plan

Project Description This project evaluated the QuitAssist™ Web site, a smoking cessation resource site developed and maintained by Philip Morris USA. The evaluation involved six studies, ranging from a large-scale survey to a usability analysis involving smoking cessation and Web design experts. If the evaluation finds that this Web-based resource facilitates smoking cessation, it will…

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Adolescence to Adulthood
Social Emotional Health and Well-Being

Week in the Life Study

Project Description The Week in the Life Study used mobile touchscreen devices to understand how adolescents’ daily experiences affect their mental and physical well-being in everyday life. Project Goals In doing so, the study aimed to answer the following questions: What are the most frequently experienced stressors (negative events) and uplifts (positive events) in adolescents’…

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Adolescence to Adulthood
Families and Parenting
Social Emotional Health and Well-Being

Intergenerational Transmission of Resilience to ACEs

Project Description Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) can have devastating effects on health and behavior. But many children avoid such dire outcomes, even thrive, despite exposures to multiple ACEs. It is not known, however, whether this individual resilience will be sustained into adulthood and transmitted to the next generation. This project brings together a longitudinal, community…

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Adolescence to Adulthood
Families and Parenting

Optimizing Prevention of Costly Adult Outcomes

Project Description Although prevention scientists have documented effective interventions to prevent adult substance abuse, antisocial behavior, and risky sexual behavior, these interventions have not been applied to optimize return on investment and thus have not yet been fully embraced by communities. We propose mapping the relations between early risk profiles (and preventive intervention) and adult…

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Adolescence to Adulthood
K-12 Education

Safe Schools/Healthy Students Program

Project Description The Safe Schools/Healthy Students program strove to reduce school violence and promote students’ healthy development. The Center’s work involved: Researching funding opportunities Assistance to secure $7.5M in federal funds to reduce school violence and promote student health Staff training and supervision to implement evidence-based programs to reduce school violence Evaluating programs in accordance…

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Adolescence to Adulthood
K-12 Education

Truancy Prevention Project

Project Description Chronic truancy is prevalent among school children who are at risk. Truancy in primary school is predictive of truancy in later years, school dropout, and the closely associated problems of adolescence, including substance abuse and delinquency. Hence there is reason to believe that an effective program of truancy reduction in the primary years…

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Adolescence to Adulthood
K-12 Education
Social Emotional Health and Well-Being

Promoting Self-Regulation to Enhance Social, Behavioral, and Academic Adjustment in Middle School

Project Description The Be CALM (Cool, Attentive, Logical, and Mature) intervention is guided by a theory of change that intentionally targets self-regulatory processes in need of support and development during early adolescence: immature cognitive controls, increased emotionality and stress reactivity, and responsivity to peers. This approach, which is delivered by teachers in health education classes…

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Child Welfare
Families and Parenting

Studying Whether Two North Carolina Legal Interventions Reduce Child Maltreatment

Project Description Child maltreatment is an important public health issue; exposure increases the risk of adverse health consequences including injury, substance use, obesity, depression, and death. The criminal justice system’s role in reducing such crimes is not well understood. Further, few studies examines whether Family Drug Treatment Courts prevent maltreatment. Project Goals This study has…

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Adolescence to Adulthood
Social Emotional Health and Well-Being

College Students’ Non-Medical Use and Misuse of ADHD Meds

Project Description This four-year study examined the prevalence, correlates, causes and consequences of the misuse and abuse of ADHD medications by college students at Duke University and The University of North Carolina at Greensboro. The main reason that students reported using ADHD medication was to enhance their academic performance, primarily by improving their ability to…

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Enhanced Applied Public Policy Research Capacity

Project Description This project developed a proposal for a center for applied public policy for The University of North Carolina (UNC) system. Project Goals The impetus for the project stemmed from a recognition that UNC – and universities generally – can do more to connect the knowledge they generate with the policymaking process. The project…

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Adolescence to Adulthood
Families and Parenting

Marriage and Parenthood in the Lives of Adolescents and Young Adults

Project Description This study examined a socio-cultural conception of marriage and childbearing by combining qualitative and quantitative analyses to understand the roles of marriage and fertility in the lives of adolescents and young adults. Project Goals To understand socio-cultural conceptions of marriage and childbearing. Results indicated that marriage and fertility are regarded as two separate…

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K-12 Education

Educational Decision-Making: Normative Principles and Empirical Social Science Research

Project Description Write a book for educational researchers, and for those training to become educational researchers, to introduce basic normative concepts concerning education, in terms that they can use to guide and frame their work, and provide them with the intellectual resources needed to scrutinize these concepts, make judgments about them, and apply those judgments…

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Social Emotional Health and Well-Being

Dissemination and Outreach Core – Duke Autism Center of Excellence

Project Description The Dissemination and Outreach Core of the Duke Autism Center of Excellence (ACE) is part of a $12.5 million, five-year program awarded to Duke researchers to study the connections between autism and attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).  Having both autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and ADHD can lead to more severe autism symptoms in…

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Adolescence to Adulthood
K-12 Education

America’s Promise Evaluation Project

Project Description This project evaluates the first phase of America’s Promise Alliance’s new nationwide effort to deliver five ‘promises’ to 15 million young people between 2008 and 2012. The first phase focuses on improving high school graduation rates through a series of school dropout summits. The Alliance has planned a series of 50 state-level and…

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Families and Parenting
Race Equity

Parental Employment, Family Functioning and Young Child Well-being: A Daily Diary Study of Mexican Immigrant Families

Project Description This study sought to examine day-to-day variability in the work experiences (work hours; workload; interpersonal interactions with supervisors and coworkers; perceptions of discrimination) of Mexican immigrant fathers with young children (age 3-5) and how those work experiences affect family functioning and child well-being. Mediating mechanisms linking paternal work experiences to child behavior were…

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Early Care and Education
K-12 Education

Evaluation of the Larry King Center

Project Description The Larry King Center for Building Children’s Futures is a new initiative aimed at improving the lives of children in Charlotte, North Carolina. Project Goals The Larry King Center has identified the following key objectives: improve school readiness, reduce the incidence and impact of child abuse and neglect, and increase access to health…

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Adolescence to Adulthood
Child Welfare
Families and Parenting

Durham Family Initiative

Project Description The Durham Family Initiative was a 12-year collaboration with the Center for Child and Family Health supported by the The Duke Endowment to improve family well-being and reduce child maltreatment in Durham County. The endeavor began by providing community-based efforts to help families support their children’s health, growth and development in stressed neighborhoods…

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Child Welfare
Families and Parenting
Social Emotional Health and Well-Being

Integration of Family Connects and HealthySteps in Guilford County

Purpose The Center for Child and Family Policy is partnering with the Center for Child and Family Health and ZERO TO THREE to develop a novel integration of Family Connects and HealthySteps in Guilford County, NC. Both are proven programs that improve outcomes for very young children. Goal The integration of the two programs promises to provide all children in…

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Crime Gun Theft

Project Description Interviews with active criminals and inmates indicate that only a small percentage who have had guns get them from licensed dealers. Rather, it seems that most acquire their guns by way of a willing third party; a straw purchaser; a trafficker, a friend or relative; or an unwilling one, that is, by theft….

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Adolescence to Adulthood
Social Emotional Health and Well-Being

Scientific Meetings for Advancing Economic Analyses of Substance Abuse Prevention

Project Description Key experts will be brought together to advance the economic analysis of substance abuse prevention. Project Aims Aims: cultivate a sustainable interdisciplinary research team identify analytic approaches for strengthening cost and benefit estimates, and provide guidance around employing benefit-cost analyses to build efficient prevention efforts. Project Results

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Families and Parenting
Social Emotional Health and Well-Being

Positive Parenting in Wake County

Researcher Katie Rosanbalm served as a consultant/collaborator to the Wake County Public School System for this project, helping them with the planning phase for wide-scale implementation of the Triple P (positive parenting program) intervention within Wake County.

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K-12 Education

Database for Title V State Abstinence Education Plan

Project Description Center researchers developed a web-based data collection system to collect evaluation measures for the Title V State Abstinence Education Plan. The new system was based on the model that the Center for Child and Family Policy developed for the Child and Family Support Teams, which has been functioning for over five years. The…

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Families and Parenting
Poverty and Inequality

Meeting the Bar: A Propensity Score Analysis of BSF Impacts by Couples’ Economic Status

Project Description The Building Strong Families (BSF) project, a randomized control trial to enhance relationships among new parents, had few effects on the families involved. The treatment, which consisted of counseling, relationship skill training, and other family support services, had little impact on relationship outcomes, parenting measures, or child well-being. Three years after randomization, the…

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K-12 Education

Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research (CALDER)

Project Description This study harvests state administrative data for insights into who teaches what kinds of students, what determines teacher quality and how these concerns affect academic achievement and high school graduation rates. The research, on public school teachers and students in kindergarten through 12th grade, concentrates on interactions among teacher hiring, compensation, assignment and…

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K-12 Education

Increasing Teacher Effectiveness Evaluation

Project Description United Way Worldwide provided grant funds to 14 United Way agencies in three states to increase the demand for teacher effectiveness. The underlying assumption of this initiative is that creating policies that promote the training, recruitment, and retention of effective teachers will lead to increased student success. Furthermore, it is assumed that elected officials,…

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Adolescence to Adulthood
K-12 Education

Beyond Test Scores: Schooling and Life-Course Outcomes in Early Adulthood

Project Description A team of social policy researchers from the Center for Child and Family Policy and the Sanford School of Public Policy examined the connection between test scores and important outcomes that signaled or influenced the accumulation of human capital. The research had policy implications for high school graduation and post-secondary education rates, labor…

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Early Care and Education
Families and Parenting
Social Emotional Health and Well-Being

Comprehensive Community Mental Health Services for Children and Their Families

Project Description There is a concerning lack of available mental health services for children aged zero to five with serious emotional disturbances and their families in Alamance County. Alamance County Department of Social Services, through this grant, is building such services within the framework of a comprehensive home- and community-based System of Care. Evaluation of…

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A Foundation-University Partnership: Collaborating for Non-profit Capacity Building and Infrastructure Enhancement

Project Description A collaborative project with the Oak Foundation. Project Goals A multi-disciplinary Center team is working with the Oak Foundation and its grantees to assist them in building stronger organizations to realize outcomes at the individual, organizational and community levels. The project team applies tailored technical assistance to help organizations enhance their infrastructure and…

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Social Emotional Health and Well-Being

Children’s Health and Discovery Initiative

Project Description Child abuse and neglect affects over six million U.S. children per year. However, preventing child maltreatment and its poor outcomes is challenging due to lack of timely identification of children at risk. We lack a clear understanding of the types of interactions that at-risk children and their families have with professionals who could…

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K-12 Education

Evaluating the Impact of North Carolina’s Kindergarten Entry Formative Assessment Intervention on Student Outcomes in the Early Grades

Project Description Current research indicates that formative assessment programs in various states have resulted in improved outcomes for students. However, the degree of benefit varies widely and the specific impact of NC’s KEA remains unknown. Dr. Muschkin, Dr. Glennie and Dr. Lennon will conduct an impact study to holistically assess the impact of KEA in…

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Poverty and Inequality

Global Human Development Intervention Research Network

Project Description Foster a global network for human development intervention research in low- and middle-income countries. Project Goals The goal of this project is to foster the development of a new global network for human development intervention research in low- and middle-income countries. Using the new global network, a researcher or interventionist would be able…

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Early Care and Education
K-12 Education

Evaluation of the Larry King Center

Project Description Evaluate the work and activities of the Larry King Center in Charlotte, NC. Project Goals The evaluation of the activities of the Larry King Center involved four components: Survey with participants of the School Readiness Action Planning Process that occurred in 2011. The goal of this survey was to assess what activities have…

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Poverty and Inequality
Race Equity

The Impact of State EITC Policy and Practices on Participation Rates of Hispanic Families

Project Description This study is a collaboration between Dr. Gennetian and co-PI Dana Thomson from Child Trends and aims to advance the understanding of how Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) policies and practices may vary by race/ethnicity and differentially affect use among eligible Hispanic families with young children. Project Goals The study will examine (1)…

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Child Welfare
Families and Parenting

Causes, Consequences, and Prevention of Child Maltreatment

Project Description Research Triangle scientists with demonstrated expertise in the pressing public health problem of child maltreatment planned to develop a multidisciplinary, product-oriented scholarly work group to address the causes, consequences, and prevention of child maltreatment. Project Goals The specific activities included: convening regular meetings to share research findings and to identify specific topics for…

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Social Emotional Health and Well-Being

North Carolina Central University Campus Coalition Evaluation

Project Descriptions The Center serves as the evaluator for the evaluation efforts for the North Carolina Central University Campus Community Coalition SAMHSA project. Project Goals xxx Project Findings

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Adolescence to Adulthood
Social Emotional Health and Well-Being

Monitoring Substance Abuse in Durham County

Project Description Center researchers have prepared three editions of the Survey of Substance Use and Abuse in Durham County, releasing the most recent in spring 2013, sponsored by Durham Together for Resilient Youth (TRY). The goal of creating the report was to better understand the dynamics of the substance abuse problem in the Durham community….

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Child Welfare
Families and Parenting

Doris Duke Fellowships for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect

Project Description The Doris Duke Fellowships for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect is designed to identify and develop a new generation of leaders capable of and interested in creating initiatives that will advance child abuse prevention practice and policy. Because the prevention of child maltreatment requires knowledge and collaboration from diverse fields, the…

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Adolescence to Adulthood
Social Emotional Health and Well-Being

Epigenetic Mediation of Early Environmental Influences on Adolescent Neurobehavioral Development

Project Description Although most children navigate the challenges of puberty and settle into adolescence without major problems, about 20% will experience at least one mental health disorder during their teenage years.  Why do some adolescents struggle so much more than others?  Decades of research in developmental science have demonstrated the mutual influence of genotype and…

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Adolescence to Adulthood
Families and Parenting
Social Emotional Health and Well-Being

Adolescent Adjustment: An Integrative Examination of Parenting, Emotion Regulation, and Social Information Processing

Project Description There is very limited cross-cultural evidence on the relationship among parenting practices, children’s emotions, children’s social behaviors, and children’s general well-being. I have teamed up with a young scholar, Dr. Laura DiGuinta, in Italy to examine how culture influences these factors. We collected data from 460 11- to 12-year-old children and their parents…

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Families and Parenting
Social Emotional Health and Well-Being

Effects of Scheduling Stability Legislation on Family Functioning: A Combined Event Study and Daily Diary Study of Workers in Emeryville, CA

Project Description The issue of so-called “on-call scheduling,” in which employers facing variable customer demand minimize labor costs by requiring workers to be available for work but not compensating them for their availability when not needed, is receiving national attention. Several localities have considered legislation to require large employers to commit to schedules with two…

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Adolescence to Adulthood
K-12 Education

Collaborative Research: Leveraging Matched Administrative Datasets to Improve Educational Practice and Long Run Outcomes: Toward Building a National Interdisciplinary Network

Project Description The U.S. Government has made the collection of large-scale individual-level longitudinal data for students in kindergarten through twelfth grade and beyond a major national priority, and has to date invested $500 million (with another $100 million slated for awards during fiscal year 2012) in helping states to develop the capacity to collect, maintain,…

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Adolescence to Adulthood
Families and Parenting
Social Emotional Health and Well-Being

Development and Prevention of Substance Abuse Problems

Project Description This project aims to discern how early conduct disorder leads to substance-use problems; to understand processes of resilience to substance use development among conduct problem children; and to test the efficacy of a conduct disorder prevention program in preventing substance use problems in young adulthood. Project Aims To describe comorbidity, growth, and cross-temporal…

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Families and Parenting
Poverty and Inequality
Race Equity
Social Emotional Health and Well-Being

Household Net Worth Poverty and Children’s Development

Project Description To examine how children’s experiences with household net worth poverty and income poverty influence their well-being as measured through cognitive and socio-emotional outcomes.  The sample of children aged 0-18 and their household characteristics will be constructed from existing Prospective Study of Child Development–Child Development Study (PSID-CDS) data.  Descriptive statistics and multivariate regression analyses…

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Families and Parenting

4th Trimester Maternal Health Innovation Project

Project Description Family Connects International is partnering with the University of North Carolina’s 4th Trimester Project to learn more about the postpartum experience. This work is part of a larger, federally funded project through the Health Resources and Service Administration to the state of North Carolina, called the Maternal Health Innovation program. Project Goals This…

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Child Welfare
Families and Parenting

Prospective Study of Infant Development

The Prospective Study of Infant Development is a randomized control trial evaluation of the Family Connects program (formerly Durham Connects). In order to examine the ways in which family characteristics and community services are associated with family well-being, the Prospective Study of Infant Development interviewed families who had participated in Durham Connects on multiple aspects of family life, including parents’ opinions about parenting, child health and medical care, access and receipt of family services, and mothers’ well-being.

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Early Care and Education
Social Emotional Health and Well-Being

Impact of Toxic Stress on Self-Regulation: Implications for ACF Programs

Project Description The purpose of the “Impact of Toxic Stress on Self-Regulation: Implications for ACF Programs” project was to Thoroughly describe research on the impact of toxic stress on the development of self-regulation skills and capacity from early childhood though young adulthood. Review and describe the effectiveness of interventions to promote self-regulation for universal and…

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Early Care and Education
Social Emotional Health and Well-Being

ITTI Care

The Infant-Toddler Trauma-Informed Care (ITTI Care) Project leverages the existing early childhood education workforce support system to expand and strengthen trauma-informed knowledge and practice within the communities they serve.

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Families and Parenting
Social Emotional Health and Well-Being

Project LAUNCH Evaluation

Project Description The Alamance County Health Department contracted with the Center for Child and Family Policy to conduct the external evaluation of Project LAUNCH, a demonstration project for the wellness of young children and the development of state- and locally-based networks for the coordination of key child-serving systems.  LAUNCH aimed to create a preventive system…

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Child Welfare
Families and Parenting

Durham Integrated Domestic Violence Response System (DIDVRS)

Project Description The Durham Integrated Domestic Violence Response System (DIDVRS) is a collaborative project that includes the Durham County Department of Social Services (DCDSS), the Durham Crisis Response Center (DCRC), the Durham Police Department (DPD), Durham County Emergency Medical Services (EMS), the Center for Child and Family Health (CCFH), Exchange Family Center (EFC), and the…

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Families and Parenting

Community Non-Profit Capacity Building Pilot Project

Project Description The Community Nonprofit Capacity-Building Project sought to support family-serving organizations in Durham by providing training, coaching, and technical assistance in areas such as policy engagement, evaluation, and evidence-based implementation. Project Goals This project, currently in the pilot phase, partnered with organizations to identify their needs and goals, match them with experts in these…

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Adolescence to Adulthood
Social Emotional Health and Well-Being

Monitoring Substance Use Indicators for North Carolina Adolescents

Project Description This project built a Web-based data reporting system for describing trends in adolescent substance abuse indicators in North Carolina. The system was populated with data that is publicly available. This database included indicators of substance use from a large range of sources, including self-reported measures from the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance Survey and…

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Adolescence to Adulthood
Families and Parenting
K-12 Education

GREAT Schools and Families Project – Evaluation Research Study in Area of Aggression/Interpersonal Youth

Project Description The GREAT Schools and Families Project – completed in 2007 – was a multi-site program to develop and evaluate violence prevention programs for middle school students. Researchers from Virginia Commonwealth University, the University of Illinois-Chicago, and the University of Georgia-Athens collaborated on this project. The project was funded by the National Centers for…

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Adolescence to Adulthood
Families and Parenting
Social Emotional Health and Well-Being

Fast Track Data Center

Project Description The Duke University Fast Track Data Center provides all data files that are necessary to complete analyses to evaluate the impact of the Fast Track preventive intervention program, the factors that account for positive impact of the program, and processes in the development of healthy and problematic outcomes in high-risk youth. The study…

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K-12 Education

Secondary and Postsecondary Pathways to Labor Market Success: A Proposed Research Program

Project Description The National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research (CALDER) received funding from the Gates Foundation for this project. The American Institutes of Research (AIR) was the main contractor and worked with subcontractors from several universities, including Duke University, who, among them, have experience working with rich administrative data in North…

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K-12 Education

Evaluation of The Hill Center Program in Davie County and Durham Public Schools

Project Description This includes an evaluation of the Hill Center Reading Achievement Program (HillRAP) as implemented in the Durham Public Schools from September 2008 to June 2010. The Center for Child and Family Policy conducted this evaluation in collaboration with the Durham Public School System and the NC GlaxoSmithKline Foundation. This study is an extension…

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Macomb Intermediate School District Kindergarten Home Visit Project

Project Description Amy Schulting has partnered with Macomb County Intermediate School District (MISD) in Michigan to implement and evaluate teacher home visiting as a kindergarten transition practice. MISD kindergarten teachers will be trained by Dr. Schulting to conduct a 30-minute home visit for each of their students at the beginning of the 2015-2016 school year. Teachers also will…

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Adolescence to Adulthood
Social Emotional Health and Well-Being

Macro-to-Micro Contextual Triggers of Early Adolescent Substance Exposure

Project Description What features of adolescents’ neighborhoods, families, and peer groups trigger early substance use? How can contextual triggers of early substance use be targeted to promote healthy development during the transition to middle school? Exposure to alcohol and drugs during early adolescence carries significant costs to adolescents’ future lives. As a result,parents, teachers, and…

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Adolescence to Adulthood
K-12 Education

Research on High School Reform: Study of the Efficacy of North Carolina’s Learn and Earn Early College High School Model

Project Description This project established and maintained databases for conducting study on high school reform and integrates the data with the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. Project Goals The goal of this project is to investigate the Early College High School model and its impact on students. Project Findings

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Families and Parenting

Durham Children’s Data Center

Project Description The Durham Children’s Data Center was established in January 2015. Initial partners include the Durham County Manager’s Office, the Durham Public Schools, the Durham Partnership for Children, and Duke University. Initial funding for the Data Center was provided by Duke University. The Center is housed and administered at the Center for Child and…

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Adolescence to Adulthood
Social Emotional Health and Well-Being

Justice and Mental Health Collaboration Project

Project Description The Justice and Mental Health Collaboration was an outreach program designed to provide intensive follow-up to police service calls involving persons with mental health issues and to divert them into community-based treatment. The Center for Child and Family Policy contracted with the Durham Police Department to provide technical assistance, data analysis and development…

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K-12 Education

The Impact of Federal Accountability Sanctions on Student Outcome: Evidence from North Carolina

Project Description Accountability programs are intended to induce teachers and schools to adopt more effective and efficient means of achieving set educational goals using a system of extrinsic punishments and rewards. In North Carolina, two different accountability systems were jointly adopted in 2002. NCLB focused on punishment for underperforming schools by introducing parental choice, after-school…

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Adolescence to Adulthood
Social Emotional Health and Well-Being

Effects of Cognitive Control Training among Adolescent Offenders

Project Description This project examined how cognitive control skills such as attention, working memory, and response inhibition relate to social-information processing skills and serious adolescent conduct problems (e.g., substance use and offenses). It also assessed the impact of computerized cognitive enhancement training on cognitive control and social information processing skills. Project Goals The primary goal…

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Adolescence to Adulthood
Poverty and Inequality
Race Equity

The Role of Wealth in the Transition to Young Adulthood for Minority Youth

Project Description This project represents the first efforts to ascertain the extent and potential repercussions of wealth and net worth poverty among minority youth. Project Goals 1. Analyze racial and ethnic disparities in wealth among households with children, and identify potential mechanisms that explain such disparities.2. Estimate levels and trends in net worth poverty for…

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K-12 Education

Longitudinal Data for Education Reform: Critical Role for North Carolina Education Research Data Center

Project Description Accountability programs rely on high-stakes testing in order to measure progress toward equity in educational resources and student outcomes, with an emphasis on empirical criteria of improvement. These criteria have enhanced the collection of administrative data on districts, schools, and students for accountability reporting requirements, as well as focus on using this information…

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K-12 Education
Poverty and Inequality

The Timing of SNAP Benefit Receipt and Children’s Academic Achievement

Project Description An important part of the U.S. safety net, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) provides cash-like benefits to low-income people that can only be used to purchase food. My proposed project will investigate relationships between the timing of SNAP benefit receipt and children’s achievement test scores in North Carolina (NC), using a unique…

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Social Emotional Health and Well-Being

CIFAR Child Brain and Development Research Award

Project Description Candice Odgers is a newly elected member of the Child Brain & Development Program sponsored by the Canadian Institutes for Advanced Research (CIFAR). This award supports new and innovative research related to the goals of the Program led by Odgers and her research team. Project Goals Researchers with the program in Child &…

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Adolescence to Adulthood
Social Emotional Health and Well-Being

Adolescent Drug Use: Development, Prevention, and Policy

Project Description This Senior Scientist Award supported a portion of the principal investigator’s salary. Dr. Dodge’s research contributed to the societal prevention of serious problem outcomes, including substance abuse, behaviors that place one at risk for HIV/AIDS, and child abuse, in two related populations: multi-problem adolescents and young high-risk mothers. Project Aims The specific aims…

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Early Care and Education
Social Emotional Health and Well-Being

The Intergenerational Effects of the Criminal Justice System on Children’s Health

Project Description Children whose parents use substances or are incarcerated (or both) are at-risk for experiencing negative outcomes, e.g., physical and mental health declines, early substance use initiation, criminal activity, being exposed to maltreatment or harsh parenting, and poor school outcomes. In the U.S., at a point in time, 2 million children have an incarcerated…

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Adolescence to Adulthood
Social Emotional Health and Well-Being

Natural History of ADHD in a Population-based Sample

Project Description This five-year project examined adolescent outcomes of a population-based sample of individuals who had been diagnosed with ADHD five to six years earlier. This study represented the largest follow-up of a community-based sample of children with ADHD that has ever been conducted.  Project Goals Examine long-term academic and behavioral outcomes for children with…

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Adolescence to Adulthood
K-12 Education
Poverty and Inequality

The Effects of Local Job Destruction on Youth Mobility

Project Description We combined the quasi-experimental data we have constructed on mass job losses by month in every county in North Carolina and by quarter in every state in the US (Ananat, Gassman-Pines, and Gibson-Davis 2013) with local area statistics on mobility by cohort (Chetty, Hendren, Kline, Saez, and Turner 2014) to identify how changing local…

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Families and Parenting
Poverty and Inequality

The Racial Marriage Gap and Student Achievement: A New Look at an Old Conundrum

Project Description Policymakers fear that the gap in marriage between low- and high-income parents may exacerbate inequality by increasing disparities in children’s academic achievement. Whether it does, however, depends on whether marriage causes improved child outcomes or merely reflects other advantages. We revisit this question by identifying quasi-experimental variation in whether parents who conceive non-maritally…

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Adolescence to Adulthood
Social Emotional Health and Well-Being

Child Mental Health Initiative (BECOMING)

Project Description Center researchers Nicole Lawrence, Joel Rosch, Liz Snyder, and Anne-Marie Iselin helped Alliance Behavioral Healthcare secure a six-year $5.4 million federal grant from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). This grant builds upon the existing infrastructure of Durham’s child and adult System of Care by targeting transition-age youth (16-21) with…

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K-12 Education

Project CLASS: A Randomized Trial of Two Promising Interventions for Students with Attention Problems

Project Description This study evaluated the effectiveness of two promising interventions – computerized attention training and computer-assisted instruction (CAI) – for 77 first-graders identified by their teachers as having attention difficulties. Project CLASS assessed the impact of these interventions on students’ behavior, attention and academic achievement. Students who received either intervention were more likely than…

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Families and Parenting
Social Emotional Health and Well-Being

Immigration Enforcement and Birth Outcomes: Evidence from North Carolina

Project Description Over the past decade, the United States has seen a marked increase in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activities. We propose to analyze a potentially harmful, but unintended, consequence of such activities: its effects on the health and well-being of immigrant pregnant mothers and their children. We investigate the impacts of 287(g) programs…

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Adolescence to Adulthood
K-12 Education

Preliminary Evaluation of the National STEM Career Platform

Project Description This project provided a preliminary evaluation of the National STEM Career Platform, a web-based system for helping high school students identify STEM careers that match their interests and to become aware of the educational and career opportunities that are available to them. Researchers in the Center for Child and Family Policy created and…

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Adolescence to Adulthood
Social Emotional Health and Well-Being

Transdisciplinary Prevention Research Center (TPRC)

Project Description The goal of the P30 Duke Transdisciplinary Prevention Research Center (TPRC) was to facilitate the translation of basic-science knowledge about regulatory processes and peer influences into innovative research efforts to prevent substance use and related problems in adolescents. As stipulated by the National Institutes of Health, a P30 Center does not directly conduct…

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Child Welfare

Evaluation of Implementation of Multiple Response System

Project Description The North Carolina General Assembly in July 2001 mandated that the state Division of Social Services develop and pilot a county-level differential response system that used a family assessment track for selected reports of child maltreatment in addition to the traditional investigative process. North Carolina developed seven strategies as part of the larger…

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Adolescence to Adulthood
Social Emotional Health and Well-Being

Durham Together for Resilient Youth (TRY)

Project Description Substance use is a dynamic problem that impacts a community in a multitude of ways. In an effort to understand how substance use affects Durham, this project assembled information from a variety of local health and social service agencies. The report prepared by Center researchers documented information on geospatial and time trends, on…

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Families and Parenting
Poverty and Inequality

Family Structure and Inequality in Contemporary America

Project Description This project analyzes economic inequality among families with children in the contemporary American landscape. Our goal is to ascertain whether family structure per se has become more important over time in explaining economic inequality, or whether it is the constellation of factors associated with family structure that have grown in importance. To achieve…

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Adolescence to Adulthood
K-12 Education

Economic and Social Determinants of the Educational, Occupational, and Residential Choices of Young Adults

Project Description The William T. Grant Scholars Program supports promising early-career researchers from diverse disciplines, who have demonstrated success in conducting high-quality research and are seeking to further develop and broaden their expertise. Selected as a 2010-11 Scholar, Dr. Elizabeth Ananat received funding from the W.T. Grant Foundation for this research. It will follow several…

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Families and Parenting
K-12 Education

Feasibility Study for a Guilford County Comprehensive Child Information System

Project Description The Duke Endowment and the Say Yes to Education programs requested that the Center for Child and Family Policy conduct a Feasibility Study to determine whether a comprehensive information system can be engineered for their proposed Guilford Initiative. The information system will track every child living in Guilford County over time, pull in…

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Adolescence to Adulthood
K-12 Education

North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics Summer Ventures Program Evaluation

Project Description Every summer, The North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics (NCSSM) works with four universities (Appalachian State, North Carolina Central University, East Carolina University, and University of North Carolina-Charlotte) to bring rising juniors and seniors from across North Carolina to their campuses for the opportunity to take part in a four week program…

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Social Emotional Health and Well-Being

Setting the Stage: Planning for Intentional and Effective Spaces and Places for Children

Project Description Setting the Stage: Planning for Intentional and Effective Spaces and Places for Children is designed to identify best practices in the art of designing the physical and social environments in which children [live, work, and play] in order to promote positive mental health. Using a multi-tiered approach, including the thoughtful and consistent incorporation…

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Adolescence to Adulthood
K-12 Education

Evaluation of Bridgescape Academy

Project Description Funding was received from Durham Public Schools to evaluate the Magic Johnson Bridgescape Academy, a new alternative high school program, on the academic engagement and performance of approximately 100 Durham area students who previously dropped out of high school and have enrolled in this new program. The evaluation consisted of qualitative methods including…

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Adolescence to Adulthood
Families and Parenting

Effects of Drug Treatment Courts on Outcomes of Adults and Their Children

Project Description This three-year study set will evaluate four types of courts, general, driving while intoxicated (DWI), drug and hybrid drug. Drug treatment courts (DTC) represent a promising innovation for dealing with crimes committed by offenders who have an underlying addiction problem. Specialty courts combine standard deterrence efforts with treatment. Project Aims This study has…

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Early Care and Education

Evaluation of Book Babies Program

Project Description Book Babies is a program created by Book Harvest to provide Medicaid-eligible Durham area children with books. Book Babies staff visit families starting at a child’s birth and every 6 months thereafter until the child starts Kindergarten. At each home visit, Book Babies staff deliver 10 age appropriate books and spend time with…

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Adolescence to Adulthood
K-12 Education
Poverty and Inequality

Collaborative Proposal: A Data-Intensive Exploration of the Links between SES and STEM Learning Outcomes

Project Description This project brings together an interdisciplinary research team from Duke University, SRI International, Teachers College, and the Association of American Geographers to explore relationships between the socioeconomic status (SES) of students and their STEM learning outcomes. The motivations for this project are twofold (1) identify the links between SES and STEM Learning and…

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Early Care and Education

N.C. DHHS Early Childhood Action Plan Data Support Partnership

Project Description This project involves data analyses related to early childhood programs and initiatives housed at North Carolina’s Department of Health and Human Services, including the North Carolina Early Childhood Action Plan. Project Goals The goal of this project is to analyze early childhood programs within North Carolina’s Department of Health and Human Services. Project…

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Adolescence to Adulthood
Social Emotional Health and Well-Being

Advancing the Study of Human Development with 21st Century Technologies

Project Description This funding supported an interdisciplinary team of scholars from economics, electrical and computer engineering, medicine, psychology, public policy and sociology in developing the capacity to embed ‘intensive measurement bursts’ into two of the most widely accessed and cited cohort studies in the world that, collectively, have assessments spanning from birth to the fifth…

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K-12 Education

Peer and Neighborhood Influences on Youth and Adolescent Development

Project Description This grant supported Dr. Jacob Vigdor’s research examining institutional factors that influence adolescent decision making processes. These factors include policies determining the grade configuration of schools and the assignment of students to classrooms, neighborhood-level influences, and incentive systems that aim to induce adolescents to avoid behaviors with long-run negative consequences. One study published…

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Adolescence to Adulthood

Juvenile Justice Treatment Continuum

Project Description This project supported the Center’s effort to help 12 rural North Carolina counties secure evidence-based mental health services for children involved in the court system. Center staff also helped to create an evaluation plan for the project. Project Goals The purpose of this project is to aid children and their families who are…

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Families and Parenting
Poverty and Inequality
Social Emotional Health and Well-Being

Evaluating and Mitigating the Impact of Evictions and Other Housing Insecurity Issues Over Health and Child Development in North Carolina

Project Description The overall goal of this project is to develop an understanding of the effects of housing insecurity on families in Durham County and the conditions and policies that contribute to housing insecurity. We will work with our community partners to identify policies and services that influence the impact of housing insecurity in our community….

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Adolescence to Adulthood
Social Emotional Health and Well-Being

Strengthening Benefit-Cost Analyses of Substance Abuse Project

Project Description Substance abuse is estimated to cost the nation over $180 billion annually, yet relatively little is known about whether current evidence-based preventive interventions can efficiently reduce these costs. In order to conduct high quality benefit-cost analyses of substance abuse prevention efforts, researchers will require (1) comprehensive cost estimates that account for the resources…

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Adolescence to Adulthood
K-12 Education
Social Emotional Health and Well-Being

Neuroscience-Based Health Curriculum to Promote Academic Success

Project Description Students are expected to use their brain power to achieve academic, physical, and social success, although they receive no explicit instruction about how to care for and effectively use their brains. As neuroscientists and educators, we realize that recent advances in neuroscience about how the brain works have not yet been integrated into…

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Early Care and Education
Social Emotional Health and Well-Being

Guilford County Incredible Years Preschool Sustainability Project

In 2017-18 and 2018-19, with funding from the Institute of Education Sciences, we provided training to 54 classrooms in Guilford County to promote the implementation of two of the Incredible Years Series of Programs: Incredible Years Teacher Classroom Management and Incredible Years Dinosaur School.

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Adolescence to Adulthood

Diseases of Despair in Young Adulthood: Risk, Resilience, and Prevention

Despite many years of research and rising suicides and a nationwide opiates public health emergency, we lack accurate and appreciable predictions of who will succumb to deaths of despair and who will be shielded from them.

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K-12 Education
Race Equity

Targeted Reading Intervention: Investigating the Efficacy of a Web-Based Early Reading

The purpose of this study is to determine the efficacy of Targeted Reading Intervention (TRI) with young English language learners. TRI is an instructional intervention and professional development program for early reading, designed to help classroom teachers acquire key diagnostic strategies for use with young, struggling readers.

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K-12 Education
Race Equity

BELLA Program: ESL and Classroom Teachers Working Together with Students and Families

This study tests a new teacher professional development program, Developing Consultation and Collaboration Skills (DCCS), for increasing the language and literacy skills of young Latino English learners. The DCCS model has three key components that coaches work with classroom and English as a Second Lanuage (ESL) teachers.

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K-12 Education
Race Equity

Race, Gesture, Learning and Teaching Effectiveness

This project has been examining how race and nonverbal communication, such as gesture and affect, impact children’s learning. The team is now working to replicate their research in the lab and pilot a gesture intervention in first and second grade classrooms in local elementary schools.

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