Function First: An Online Assessment and Intervention Tool to Reduce Runaways

? DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): An estimated 1.6 to 2.8 million youth run away or are evicted by their caregivers in the US each year. Youth in foster care are twice as likely to exhibi runaway behaviors as youth in the general population. Theyfrequently face dangerous situations, engage in high-risk behaviors, and have problems that include drug and alcohol abuse, severe emotional and conduct disorders, school failure, criminal behavior, and victimization. Yet little research has explored howbest to decrease running away of youth in foster care, and virtually no interventions are available to support providers working with these youth. To address this challenge, the Center for Social Innovation (C4) and the University of South Florida's Department of Child and Family Studies (USF) propose to adapt USF's assessment and intervention tool [Functional Assessment Interview for Runaways (FAIR)] into an innovative, highly interactive, and widely accessible web-based tool entitled Function First: An On