Leveraging Evidence to Activate Parents (LEAP)

LEAP will evaluate the use and impact of a key feature of family-based treatments – Parent Activation (PA) – when delivered by Juvenile Probation Officers (JPOs) within juvenile justice (JJ) services. The JJ system serves 1+ million cases per year and represents the primary referral source for treatment of substance use and delinquent behavior in youth. The most effective treatments for JJ youth are family-based and work by activating parents. However, many communities, particularly those in rural areas, lack the resources to support delivery of those services. Even when communities can support a family-based treatment, less than 1 in 5 JJ youth engage in those programs. JPOs are on the front line of this crisis – they have limited options for treatment referrals, and they lack access to the time and clinical training required to deliver one of the intensive family-based treatments. However, JPOs might be able to deliver a key mechanism of family-based treatments (that is, activation of parents). Fortuitously, in the healthcare field, there is an effective strategy called PA to engage and motivate parents of at-risk youth. The central hypothesis of the current study is that PA might also help JPOs activate parents and achieve improved youth (recidivism, substance use) and family (parent involvement) outcomes. Using a stepped-wedge design, 32 rural counties from various locations in the Pacific Northwest will be randomized to the timing of PA training and delivery. The investigators will examine if JPOs in those counties can deliver PA with fidelity, whether PA has an impact on justice-involved youth and family outcomes, and what factors influence PA implementation.

Year Project Began: 2020
Funder: National Institute on Drug Abuse

Principal Investigator:

• Michael R. McCart, Ph.D.

Formerly Affiliated Co-Investigators:

• Ashli J. Sheidow, Ph.D.
• Jason E. Chapman, Ph.D.
• Lisa Saldana, Ph.D.
• Tess K. Drazdowski, Ph.D.