Collaborating to Implement Cross-System Interventions in Child Welfare and Substance Use

As a result of the opiate crisis, child welfare agencies have experienced an increase in the number of children in foster care as parental substance use puts children at greater risk of maltreatment. To facilitate implementation of the Sobriety Treatment and Recovery Team (START) model, this study (1) identifies collaborative strategies associated with effective implementation and service outcomes given system and organizational context, (2) uses this evidence to specify strategies and develop a decision support guide to help agency leaders select collaborative strategies, and (3) assesses the feasibility, acceptability, and appropriateness of the decision support guide.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Substance Use; Implementation; Child Maltreatment; System Fragmentation
• Intervention / Treatment: Other: Collaboration Decision Support Guide

Detailed Description

This is a multi-staged, mixed methods study that leverages a naturally occurring policy experiment in southern Ohio. In aim 1, we will examine the collaborative strategies associated with implementation and service outcomes, given the context with 17 counties engaged in the Ohio START pilot project. We will use a convergent mixed methods design, and integrate our qualitative and quantitative data using qualitative comparative analysis. For aim 2, we will specify the collaborative strategies and develop a decision support guide using the VA's model of implementation strategy development (diagnose barriers, and convene an expert panel to design strategies). For aim 3, we assess the feasibility, acceptability, and appropriateness of the decision support guide using a mixed methods design. In the quantitative phase, we will evaluate the feasibility, acceptability, and appropriateness of each strategy in the toolkit. Our second qualitative phase (which is dominant), will examine feasibility more in-depth by piloting the guide and conducting descriptive case studies with users.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 9
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United States
  • Ohio
    • Columbus, Ohio, United States, 43210
      • The Ohio State University

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 18 years and older (Adult, Older Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Our participants included implementation support professionals who provide training and technical assistance to child welfare agencies in Ohio that are implementing Ohio START. All individuals will be adults and recruited based on their employment/position.

Exclusion Criteria:

• Individuals who do not provide implementation support.

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Health Services Research
• Allocation: N/A
• Interventional Model: Single Group Assignment
• Masking: None (Open Label)

Number of Arms

1

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm

Intervention / Treatment

Experimental: Decision-Support; An electronic copy of a collaboration decision-support guide.

Other: Collaboration Decision Support Guide; Electronic toolkit intended to help organizational leaders select partners and negotiate partnerships for implementation. This will contain: 1) a brief summary of collaboration approaches associated with implementation, 2) detailed descriptions of collaboration strategies, 3) a decision analysis tool that guides the selection of collaborative strategies given the community context, and 4) sample contract or agreement language that specifies the nature of the partnership and expectations.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Perceived Acceptability	Acceptability of Intervention Measure (AIM) - 4 survey items that assess participants' agreement about the degree to which they perceive the intervention to be acceptable. Participants rate their agreement along a 5 point scale, where 1= completely disagree and 5= completely agree. Scores from the four items will be averaged where higher scores denote greater perceived acceptability. (Weiner, B. J., Lewis, C. C., Stanick, C., Powell, B. J., Dorsey, C. N., Clary, A. S., … Halko, H. (2017). Psychometric assessment of three newly developed implementation outcome measures. Implementation Science, 12(108), 1-12. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13012-017-0635-3)	One time point (Post-test only), 8 weeks after presenting the toolkit
Perceived Appropriateness	Intervention Appropriateness Measure (IAM) - 4 survey items that assess participants' agreement about the degree to which they perceive the intervention to be appropriate. Participants rate their agreement along a 5 point scale, where 1= completely disagree and 5= completely agree. Scores from the four items will be averaged where higher scores denote greater perceived appropriateness. (Weiner, B. J., Lewis, C. C., Stanick, C., Powell, B. J., Dorsey, C. N., Clary, A. S., … Halko, H. (2017). Psychometric assessment of three newly developed implementation outcome measures. Implementation Science, 12(108), 1-12. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13012-017-0635-3)	One time point (Post-test only), 8 weeks after introducing the toolkit
Perceived Feasibility	Feasibility of Intervention Measure (FIM) - 4 survey items that assess participants' agreement about the degree to which they perceive the intervention to be feasible. Participants rate their agreement along a 5 point scale, where 1= completely disagree and 5= completely agree. Scores from the four items will be averaged where higher scores denote greater perceived feasibility. (Weiner, B. J., Lewis, C. C., Stanick, C., Powell, B. J., Dorsey, C. N., Clary, A. S., … Halko, H. (2017). Psychometric assessment of three newly developed implementation outcome measures. Implementation Science, 12(108), 1-12. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13012-017-0635-3)	One time point (Post-test only), 8 weeks after introducing the toolkit

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Ohio State University
• Collaborators: National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Alicia Bunger, PhD, Ohio State University

Publications and helpful links

General Publications

• Bunger AC, Chuang E, Girth A, Lancaster KE, Gadel F, Himmeger M, Saldana L, Powell BJ, Aarons GA. Establishing cross-systems collaborations for implementation: protocol for a longitudinal mixed methods study. Implement Sci. 2020 Jul 16;15(1):55. doi: 10.1186/s13012-020-01016-9.
• Chuang E, Bunger A, Smith R, Girth A, Phillips R, Miech E, Lancaster K, Martin J, Gadel F, Himmeger M, McClellan J, Millisor J, Willauer T, Powell BJ, Dellor E, Aarons GA. Collaboration strategies affecting implementation of a cross-systems intervention for child welfare and substance use treatment: a mixed methods analysis. Implement Sci Commun. 2024 Nov 11;5(1):127. doi: 10.1186/s43058-024-00666-w.

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): April 25, 2024
• Primary Completion (Actual): May 16, 2024
• Study Completion (Actual): May 31, 2024

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: April 22, 2019
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: April 24, 2019
• First Posted (Actual): April 29, 2019

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): April 7, 2026
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: March 18, 2026
• Last Verified: March 1, 2026

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Mental Disorders; Chemically-Induced Disorders; Substance-Related Disorders
• Other Study ID Numbers: 2017B0239; R34DA046913 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: NO

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No