Family Therapy Training and Implementation Platform (FTTIP): An innovative web-based tool for long-term practice improvement

Project Summary AbstractFamily therapy has emerged as one of the most efficacious interventions for child and adolescent behavioral and psychiatric issues such a Conduct Disorder and Substance Use Disorders and for chronic health conditions such as cancer and Alzheimer sHoweverwidespread implementation of family therapy is often hampered by high training costsre training needs following staff turnoverlow agency readiness to support new practicesand training strategies that lack ongoing implementation support or do so in ways that are prohibitively expensiveTo address this need our company will utilize a web based Family Therapy Training and Implementation PlatformFTTIPFTTIP s innovation is that itis guided by the Simpson Program Change Model focusing on organizational readiness to inform the readiness consultation and online supervisor and agency leader coaching consultationuses adaptive training and consultation processes that provide a dynamic and datadriven procedure in which a competency is taughtmeasuredand the success or failure of the learning informs the next step of training in real timeanduses technology and an online platform that provides the capabilities to fully benefit from an adaptive training and consultation processa reverse classroom strategy with more options for active learningand long distance work that reduces costPhase I research objectives will focus on customization of the platformuser interfaceand adaptation of training and consultation contenton increasing the agency s readiness for family therapy training and implementationshowing significant improvement in counselor family therapy competenciesand documenting feasibility and acceptabilityThe Phase I study will also include a small scale Training as UsualTAUcomparison condition that will allow us to generate a preliminary estimate of effect size within each of the conditionsFTTIP and TAUThese effect sizes can be used in the power analysis needed for the Phase II study and will allow us to estimate delivery cost differences as wellThe Phase I outcomes set the stage for a fully powered multisite Phase II Randomized Controlled Trial that can investigate whether FTTIP is superior toTraditional Face to Face Trainingon all key domainsincluding traineesupervisoragency and client outcomesFTTIP will be attractive to healthcare delivery systems because it will be more effective than traditionalface to facetraining methodsbetter address the service providersreadiness barriers that often are not identified or addressedand will provide ongoing consultation and counselor support during the difficult implementation phase Project NarrativeThe proposed family training and implementation platform will help to close the gap between research tested interventions and their widespread use by incorporating recent advances in implementation scienceadaptive training methodsand technology that facilitates the use of innovative strategiesThis innovation is especially significant given that family therapy is considered one of the most efficacious interventions for child and adolescent behavioral and mental health problems such as Conduct Disorder and Substance Use Disordersand for families with serious health conditions such as cancer and Alzheimer sIf successful the platform can significantly impact public health by making family therapy training and high quality implementation less costly and more effective