by The Register-Guard Staff
Through a federal grant, a team will help them learn to solve problems
A Eugene psychological researcher won a federal grant Friday for a study aimed at how to help girls about to enter middle school who also face potential obstacles.
Patti Chamberlain, who works at the Eugene-based Oregon Social Learning Center, will use the $557,000 grant to study girls whose families have disintegrated and now live in foster care.
Chamberlain and co-investigator Leslie Leve will be recruiting 45 girls from the Lane Country area to participate in the study.
Those selected for treatment will have an adult coach to spend time and problem solve with them through their sixth-grade year.
They’ll have sophisticated foster parents trained in behavior management. Their parents or adoptive parents will get extra instruction and support when the teens finally arrive at their permanent homes.
The research center put about 700 boys through similar kinds of treatment in the past two decades. Since 1997, Chamberlain and Leve have focused their research on girls, studying 110 since then.
“(Girls) tend to be underrepresented in studies,” Chamberlain said. “We know less about the developmental challenges and how development unfolds for girls than we do for boys.”
Last year, Chamberlain and Leve got a $650,000 federal grant to study 100 girls who were already delinquent. That five-year project is ongoing.
Chamberlain said she is pleased now that she’s got the grant to study girls who are challenged by circumstances – but not necessarily into crime, drugs or deviant relationships.
“It’s always nice when you can do research on prevention,” she said.
“If we could have effective prevention programs we could have a lot fewer kids that were really facing big-time challenges in the years when it’s tough just being a teenager.”
Reprinted with permission. Copyright 2003, The Register-Guard, www.registerguard.com.