National Research and Development Center on Serious Behavior Disorders at the Secondary Level

The Center will develop, implement, and evaluate a comprehensive set of intervention strategies across three core intervention components: Enhancing school and teacher capacity, building youth competence, and increasing family and community supports. The intervention package will include multiple components addressing academics and behavior (e.g., classroom structure, teacher-student interactions, evidence-based academic instruction), youth competence in social skills, mental health, and general living skills (e.g., making healthy choices, organization and study skills, mentoring, securing effective therapy), and increasing family and community supports (e.g., parent guidance, homework guidance, and linking schools to community therapy and supports). During the initial project years, the research team will examine the strategies within each core component to identify those strategies that are the most efficient and have the best potential to improve student outcomes. The strategies will be incorporated into the intervention "package" to be further refined and developed. At the end of the development phase, the team will have a fully developed intervention package with evidence of acceptability and feasibility in secondary school settings. An experimental, random assignment test of efficacy of the intervention package will be conducted in years 3–5. The goal of the trial is to determine whether the intervention package improves student outcomes compared to business-as-usual control conditions. The trial will also include an examination of the variables that mediate student-level outcomes or moderate the effect of treatment on student outcomes. A set of measures is planned to examine student behavior, social, and academic outcomes. In addition, fidelity of intervention, amount of student exposure to the intervention strategies, intervention acceptability, and social validity will be measured.