Current Projects

Mission: Dad is an interactive online program intended to support fathers’ engagement with their young children. It includes information on child development, ideas on fun activities and games for fathers to play with their children, resources to track child development, and a platform for multimedia engagement among caregivers. The Clearinghouse worked with partners to develop the web-based application for the program, and is currently conducting a study to determine usability and user satisfaction. The goal is to understand how fathers engage with the program, which individual components are most used, and fathers’ sentiments on the program as a whole.

The Clearinghouse has partnered with the U.S. Air Force and the Department of Defense Suicide Prevention Office (DSPO) to pilot test the Zero Suicide Systems Approach (ZSSA); making the Air Force the first service to pilot test a Zero Suicide Framework. The ZSSA is a pilot test of the Zero Suicide Framework across Military Treatment Facilities (MTF) at five Air Combat Command (ACC) Air Force Bases. The ZSSA aims to improve care and outcomes for individuals at risk for suicide in a healthcare system. It represents a commitment to patient safety-the most fundamental responsibility of our job-and also to the safety and support of clinical staff, who do the demanding work of treating and supporting suicidal patients.
To learn more about the ZSSA project, click here (two page handout – kyle).

The Clearinghouse, at the request of U.S. Army Family Advocacy Programs (FAP), is completing a review of case-file information to identify factors that may be predictive of treatment outcomes in order to provide information on the effectiveness of child abuse and domestic/partner abuse case treatments for Army Medical Command. In addition, the Clearinghouse is charged with developing evidence-based information for prevention of child abuse and domestic/partner abuse that supports program accountability requirements for Army Installation Management Command. To accomplish this, the Clearinghouse will conduct a survey with FAP managers (FAPMs) to identify best practices for treatment, soldier and family engagement and service delivery, and to obtain feedback on ways to improve the “FAP Guide to Prevention Programming Self-Guided Tutorial.”

In partnership with the Office of Army Chief of Staff of Installation Management (OACSIM), the Clearinghouse has two primary aims. The first aim includes: (1) carrying out evaluability assessments for 11 selected Army Community Service (ACS) programs; (2) conducting Cost Benefit/Cost Effectiveness analysis for the ACS Survivor Outreach Services (SOS) program and the Army Volunteer Corp Coordinator (AVCC) program; and (3) completing an economic assessment for the Family Advocacy Program (FAP). The second aim involves conducting evaluations for the FAP and the Employment Readiness Program (ERP). The focus of the FAP evaluation will be parenting and anger management classes, and the focus of the ERP evaluation is yet to be determined.

The Clearinghouse, at the request of Military Community and Family Policy in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, is conducting an evaluation of the effectiveness of the Child Development Centers (CDC) across all four military services (Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines). This evaluation will compare military-connected children in CDC care with military children in civilian care. Observations will assess the quality of care that is received in each child care facility, and questionnaires completed by parents and teachers will assess child development, family-work conflict, parent stress, and parental absenteeism from work.

This DoD FAP project focuses on the development of new instructional materials and a refinement of legacy instructional materials in the area of family maltreatment prevention and response. The instructional materials will be developed into modules and webpages to support commanders, other leaders, and supervisors as they address child abuse and neglect and domestic abuse in military units.

This project involves using previously collected data to explore data-driven caseload recommendations for Domestic Abuse Victim Advocates (DAVAs). Using data from across the services (collected by the Marine Corps), the Clearinghouse is assessing complexity indicators that were hypothesized to affect the amount of time a DAVA spends on an individual case. Analyzing the data will inform recommendations about how to determine caseload sizes for DAVAs.

Do you know how to talk to your kids about tolerance and acceptance? Here we offer a practical guide for parents who want to help their children develop a tolerance for, and acceptance of diversity. This can help lead to a better understanding and appreciation for human differences of all kinds, including race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and for the physically, mentally, or intellectually disabled. It provides parents with a video and resources that focus on valuing differences, rejecting stereotypes, and cultivating mutual respect. Teaching children to develop positive mindsets like tolerance and acceptance will nourish their curiosity, empathy, patience, flexibility, and respect for others, and give them a deeper understanding of self. The site also gives parents easy access to an Inclusivity Toolkit, including printable highlights from the website, as well as typical scenarios and suggestions for speaking to kids and answering questions about tolerance and acceptance.

Visit the Inclusivity website here.

The Clearinghouse provides support through interactive communication (i.e., phone, web, live chat, and email) to help professionals adopt evidence-based programs and practices to enhance family readiness. Support requests have grown significantly and steadily since 2012. These requests include gathering information on evidence-based programs, data and research findings for evidence-based prevention, help in selecting the right program, assisting with program implementation, assisting with developing an evaluation plan, explaining services offered by the Clearinghouse, and fielding questions regarding the Continuum.

The Military Spouse Transition Program (MySTeP) is a Department of Defense initiative that will become part of the comprehensive Spouse Education and Career Opportunities program. MySTeP includes the development of curriculum to inform military spouses about programs and resources they can use to prepare for their service members’ eventual transition out of the military.

The New Parent Support Program is a secondary prevention program delivered through home visitation services for expectant and new parents and their very young children (prenatal to age 5). This pilot implementation of the Clearinghouse resulted in a DoD-wide logic model and corresponding evaluation plan that will accomplish two tasks: (1) test the feasibility of the research design of the evaluation plan, and (2) test four measures that examine how well each contributes to specified outcomes of the NPSP, and how useful each measure is for tailoring service delivery.

The Resource Center for Improving Family Health Behaviors is an interactive, searchable web-based platform developed for professionals to more effectively address obesity-related behaviors among the military families they serve. By hosting the Resource Center, the Clearinghouse is creating a cohesive, supportive, virtual community that can help professionals, researchers, and military and community leaders, and can provide ongoing opportunities for interactive learning and proactive technical assistance. Thus far, more than 350 obesity prevention and intervention programs have been vetted and placed on the Continuum. Each program vetted has a brief, accompanying fact sheet for prospective users.

Clearinghouse research and evaluation scientists conduct reviews to examine the evidence base of prevention and treatment programs. Programs are placed on the Clearinghouse’s Continuum of Evidence (Continuum) and descriptions are provided to help professionals, service program managers and directors, and Department of Defense (DoD) policy analysts make informed decisions regarding how best to serve military families. The products of this work are fact sheets developed in order to provide a snapshot of each program, and include information on target audience, components, previous use, training requirements, implementation cost and time, and program contact information.

The Thrive Initiative is a continuum of evidence-informed, health-promoting parenting program for parents of children from birth to age 18. Thrive programs have been developed to reach parents in both face-to-face and web-based formats. Thrive seeks to harness parents’ potential for fostering holistic, positive youth development and resiliency throughout childhood and adolescence. The primary theoretical assumption undergirding all Thrive programming is that both what parents do (e.g., parenting practices) and how they do it (e.g., the affective quality of parenting interactions) are important for creating an optimally nurturing parent-child relationship and fostering subsequent positive child development outcomes. All programming within the Thrive initiative focuses on child health promotion through positive parenting practices and parent and child stress management.

Visit the Thrive website here

Penn State Faculty (Dr. Cristin Hall) and Clearinghouse staff are working with DoDEA partners to develop six online learning modules for school psychologists, school counselors, and school nurses related to warning signs and risk assessment, prevention, intervention, postvention, ethical and legal issues, and self-care and care coordination for at-risk students. In addition, the Clearinghouse team is working to develop supplemental materials and lesson plans for school personnel to deliver to students.