Tuesday, September 16, 2025 9/16/2025

Refining and Pilot Testing a Decision Support Intervention to Facilitate Adoption of Evidence-Based Programs to Improve Parent and Child Mental Health

Award Number: K01MH128761
ORGANIZATION: NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF MENTAL HEALTH
OPDIV: NIH
AWARD CLASS: DISCRETIONARY
AWARD ACTIVITY TYPE: TRAINING/TRAINEESHIP
PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE START DATE: 08/01/2023
PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE END DATE: 07/31/2027

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Refining and Pilot Testing a Decision Support Intervention to Facilitate Adoption of Evidence-Based Programs to Improve Parent and Child Mental Health - PROJECT SUMMARY Over 268,000 children entered foster care in the United States during fiscal year 2019 despite the existence of evidence-based programs (EBPs) that can successfully prevent child maltreatment. Evidence-informed decision-making (EIDM) can lead to the adoption of EBPs that are likely to be successfully implemented and result in the intended impacts. Despite the existence of EBPs to prevent child maltreatment, EBPs are underutilized in child welfare. Proposed study activities in this career development award respond to NIMH Objective 4.2.c by developing, refining, and piloting an implementation strategy to increase EIDM when decision makers are adopting EBPs to improve mental health and child welfare services. Activities leverage an unprecedented federal policy opportunity to prevent child maltreatment and test implementation decision support strategies in the real world: The Family First Prevention Services Act (FFPSA). FFPSA aims to prevent child maltreatment and foster care entries by providing federal funding to states for implementing EBPs that support child and parent mental health, reduce parental substance misuse, and improve parenting skills. This project engages decision makers from four states implementing FFPSA to extend the candidate’s prior work developing an innovative EIDM tool to support EBP adoption: Optimizing Responses through Collaborative Assessments (ORCA). ORCA is based in multi-criteria decision analysis, which provides a structured approach to reach quality, evidence-informed group decisions. Given that group decisions with tools such as ORCA benefit from facilitation, this study will develop and test two facilitation modalities to accompany ORCA: automated (ORCA-A) and live (ORCA-L). In addition, a web-based platform to host the ORCA tool and the ORCA-A facilitation strategy will be developed with decision makers’ input (Aim 1). The impact of ORCA-A and ORCA-L on quality of decision experiences, processes, and outcomes then will be tested (Aim 2). Implementation process quality for each EBP adopted with ORCA-A and ORCA-L will be monitored (Aim 3). To enhance her strong foundation in the implementation, decision, and systems sciences, the candidate, Dr. Gracelyn Cruden, will leverage these research activities and training activities to expand her skillset to include: leading implementation studies in service systems, employing a continuum of methods for engaging community members, leveraging interdisciplinary approaches for eliciting members’ preferences, conducting advanced simulation model testing, and using advanced statistics for multilevel, longitudinal studies. Cruden will be mentored by an outstanding team led by Primary Mentor Dr. Lisa Saldana, who is accompanied by Mentors Dr. Jason Chapman, Dr. Lindsey Zimmerman, Dr. R. Christopher Sheldrick, Dr. Jonathan Purtle, and Consultants Dr. David Vanness, and Ms. Clare Anderson. Upon completion of these activities, Cruden will be equipped to lead an interdisciplinary research team that will support quality mental health and child welfare services by increasing decision makers’ use of EIDM.


Issue Date FY	Funding FY	Legal Entity Name	Legal Entity Address	Legal Entity City	Legal Entity State	Legal Entity Zip Code	Legal Entity COUNTY	Legal Entity COUNTRY	Assistance Listing	Award Code	Budget Year	Action Date	Action Type	Action Amount

Issue Date FY: 2025 ( Subtotal = $180,181 )
2025	2025	CHESTNUT HEALTH SYSTEMS INC	1003 MARTIN LUTHER KING DR	BLOOMINGTON	IL	61701	MCLEAN	USA	Mental Health Research Grants	000	4	7/30/2025	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$180,181
														Subtotal = $180,181

Issue Date FY: 2024 ( Subtotal = $180,422 )
2024	2024	CHESTNUT HEALTH SYSTEMS INC	1003 MARTIN LUTHER KING DR	BLOOMINGTON	IL	61701	MCLEAN	USA	Mental Health Research Grants	002	3	7/26/2024	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$180,422
2024	2023	CHESTNUT HEALTH SYSTEMS INC	1003 MARTIN LUTHER KING DR	BLOOMINGTON	IL	61701	MCLEAN	USA	Mental Health Research Grants	001	2	11/7/2023	CHANGE OF GRANTEE / TRAINING INSTITUTION / AWARDING INSTITUTION	$67,074
2024	2022	OSLC DEVELOPMENTS INC	10 SHELTON MCMURPHEY BLVD	EUGENE	OR	97401	LANE	USA	Mental Health Research Grants	000	1	11/7/2023	NEW	-$67,074
														Subtotal = $180,422

Issue Date FY: 2023 ( Subtotal = $186,858 )
2023	2023	CHESTNUT HEALTH SYSTEMS INC	1003 MARTIN LUTHER KING DR	BLOOMINGTON	IL	61701	MCLEAN	USA	Mental Health Research Grants	002	2	8/28/2023	CHANGE OF GRANTEE / TRAINING INSTITUTION / AWARDING INSTITUTION	$181,302
2023	2022	OSLC DEVELOPMENTS INC	10 SHELTON MCMURPHEY BLVD	EUGENE	OR	97401	LANE	USA	Mental Health Research Grants	000	1	12/7/2022	NEW	$5,556
2023	2022	OSLC DEVELOPMENTS INC	10 SHELTON MCMURPHEY BLVD	EUGENE	OR	97401	LANE	USA	Mental Health Research Grants	001	1	8/28/2023	NEW	$0
														Subtotal = $186,858

Issue Date FY: 2022 ( Subtotal = $178,273 )
2022	2022	OSLC DEVELOPMENTS, INC.	10 SHELTON MCMURPHEY BLVD	EUGENE	OR	97401	LANE	USA	Mental Health Research Grants	000	1	8/10/2022	NEW	$178,273
														Subtotal = $178,273

Grand Total All Awards = $725,734

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Refining and Pilot Testing a Decision Support Intervention to Facilitate Adoption of Evidence-Based Programs to Improve Parent and Child Mental Health

Award Number: K01MH128761

ORGANIZATION: NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF MENTAL HEALTH

OPDIV: NIH

AWARD CLASS: DISCRETIONARY

AWARD ACTIVITY TYPE: TRAINING/TRAINEESHIP

PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE START DATE: 08/01/2023

PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE END DATE: 07/31/2027

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