Jesslyn M Jamison
University of Pennsylvania, PA·Psychology·Early-career
When a child has mental health needs, caregivers often struggle to navigate the care system, and some are wary of treatment altogether. Family Peers are parents who have raised a child with mental health needs and are trained to help other caregivers.
- Fields
Psychology
Public Health & Epidemiology
Medicine & Clinical Research
- Topics
family peer support
child mental health
caregivers
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Aug 2029
What they work on
- Survey 50 Family Peers and 50 caregivers, then interview Family Peers, caregivers and trainer/supervisors, to identify common components of one-to-one Family Peer support and the target mechanism each component is meant to engage.
- Work with an Advisory Board of Family Peers, caregivers and trainer/supervisors to synthesize survey and interview data into a refined logic model tying support components to mechanisms of change, using Intervention Mapping.
- Develop a fidelity tool, a checklist capturing whether common Family Peer components were delivered, and measure its acceptability and feasibility with 200 Family Peers reporting on a selected session.
- Assess the fidelity tool's psychometric properties using parallel caregiver reports from 40 caregivers and walk-throughs with standardized patients, and examine links between intervention components and target mechanisms.
More about the research
Their support is used across the United States, is reimbursable by Medicaid in 33 states, and trials have shown benefits for children and caregivers. Yet little is known about what Family Peers actually do in sessions, or how that work helps families. Without that knowledge it is hard to make the support more efficient and effective.
Why it matters
Family Peer support is already widely delivered and Medicaid-reimbursable in many states, yet its working parts are poorly understood. A comprehensive list of components and a tool to track their delivery could strengthen training and supervision for Family Peers, potentially making support more effective for caregivers of children with mental health needs, including families skeptical of treatment, and setting up future tests of how this support improves child and family outcomes.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Rebecca Harris
University of Pennsylvania, PA·Medicine & Clinical Research·Early-career
Identify the structures, practices, and resources of primary care Peer Recovery Specialist programs, using a program survey, direct observation at 7–10 sites, and interviews with patients, peers, and clinicians.
Amanda Jensen-Doss
University of Miami, FL·Psychology
Define and evaluate the full range of measurement-based care (MBC) fidelity domains using digital system usage data, self-report, and observer ratings from the COMET trial in community clinics.
Chardée Galán
Pennsylvania State University, PA·Psychology
Refine the Video-feedback Intervention to Promote Background-Related Communication Competency (VIP-BCC) through repeated feedback rounds with advisory boards of youth, parents, family coaches, researchers, and clinicians.
The school
University of Pennsylvania: 90 labs on PI Pages, $2.2B a year on research, 750 research doctorates a year.
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