Our Focus
Over the past 25 years, a variety of research projects have been conducted at the RRI, representing a wide spectrum of topics and issues. These include rehabilitation, juvenile justice, child welfare, mental health, domestic violence, child care and substance abuse, among others. In the following paragraphs, research in rehabilitation, child welfare, mental health and child care will be described. This summary provides just a sample of the RRI's versatility and scope.
RehabilitationThe Regional Rehabilitation Research Institute (RRRI), with Les James as its first director, was a part of the RRI for 10 years from 1974 to 1984. Funded by the National Institute of Handicapped Research, U.S. Department of Education, its aim was to conduct research in job development and job placement for persons with physical disabilities.
The RRRI served SRS Regions IX and X and worked in close cooperation with the state directors of vocational rehabilitation in those two regions. The focus of the research was to study exemplary programs in job placement and job development by examining the characteristics of counselors who were successful in job placement. The RRRI also obtained grants and contracts to provide training to vocational rehabilitation counselors in job development and job placement skills.
Child Welfare
One of the RRI's most famous projects was the "Permanency Planning Project" that began in 1973. Under a contract with the Children's Services Division of the State of Oregon, the Institute conducted an outside evaluation of a demonstration project funded by the U.S. Children's Bureau. The project was designed to overcome service barriers to developing permanent plans for children in foster care. Legal barriers to termination of parental rights and subsequent adoption were the primary targets of this demonstration that addressed the lack of definite plans for many children in foster care who were unable to return home.
The results of this project contributed to changes in foster care and adoption policy and programs across the country and contributed significant new knowledge about the institutional barriers to planning for children. The study also included a useful system analysis of the decision-making and service processes involved.
The original research was followed by a four year, 1.8 million-dollar contract to provide technical assistance to states to help them implement permanency planning techniques in their foster care programs. In conjunction with the project, a number of states were supported directly to replicate parts of the "Oregon Project" or to try new methods of their own. At the same time, the RRI was awarded a contract to conduct a follow-up evaluation of the original demonstration project, comparing those children with a group of regular Children's Services Division cases.
The results showed that permanent planning efforts resulted in the placement of more children in permanent homes (66%) than did routine casework activities. Subsequent RRI projects focused on training child welfare workers and leaders in permanency planning strategies, focusing on both casework practices and system reforms.
The RRI later conducted two national studies to assess state implementation of foster care policies under the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980. One of these studies examined the impact of voluntary placement as compared to court-ordered foster care placements.
In 1994, the Child Welfare Partnership was established, representing a nationally unique collaboration among the Graduate School of Social Work, the PSU School of Extended Studies and the State Office of Services to Children and Families (SCF). Its mission is to establish an integrated program of research, training and professional graduate education to enhance public child welfare services in the State.
Over the past four years, the Child Welfare Partnership has conducted child welfare research in collaboration with SCF. Among its major initiatives are the Cohort Study, which tracks services to Oregonchildren who have been removed from their homes; evaluation of a family preservation program for African American children in urban Portland; and the evaluation of Oregon's Tide IV-E waiver initiative.
In collaboration with the RRI, the Partnership is also involved in the evaluation of the System of Care, a strengths/needs based approach to providing services to families.
Mental Health
Throughout its history, the RRI has had many research projects that focused on the mental health service delivery system. In 1977, the RRI received a five-year grant from the National Institute of Mental Health to train social workers to work as program evaluators in the newly emerging community mental health center movement.
In 1984, the first of three five-year awards was received for a national Research and Training Center on Emotionally Handicapped children. Jointly funded by the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research, U.S. Department of Education, and the National Institute of Mental Health, then in the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, the Center has now been in existence for 14 years. For 12 of those years it has been directed by Barbara Friesen.
From its inception, the Research and Training Center has emphasized the support and advocacy needs of families who are caring for children with serious emotional disorders and that focus has expanded over time.
Renamed the Research and Training Center on Family Support and Children's Mental Health, the Center has been responsible for activities such as Families as Allies Conferences throughout the nation. These are conferences that bring equal numbers of professional mental health providers and family members who care for children with emotional disorders together to discuss the families' needs and develop strategies to enhance the service system.
In addition to its research programs, the Research and Training Center also sponsors an annual conference, Building on Family Strengths, a national conference on research and services in support of children and their families.
The Research and Training Center publishes a newsletter, Focal Point, and houses a national Clearinghouse that provides information about children's mental health issues and family support to both professionals and family members.
Since 1990, a number of large, national studies in both children's and adult mental health have been conducted at the RRI. Starting with an evaluation of the children's mental health crisis system in Oregon, other studies include the evaluation of the Oregon Partner's Project, the Family Connections Project, the Partners Network Project, the Consumer/Non consumers ACT Project, a study of Medicaid children in rural Oregon and an evaluation of Oregon's supported housing program.
In 1994, the Center for the Study of Mental Health Policy and Services, a social work research development center, received a five-year grant from the National Institute of Mental Health. The fourth such center awarded to a school of social work in the nation, its purpose is to develop high quality social work research in an active program of public mental health research.
Under the direction of Robert Paulson, the Center provides funding and technical assistance to social work faculty and doctoral students to help them develop their ideas for funddable research projects. The Center also brings nationally recognized mental health researchers to campus to conduct workshops for faculty as well as to provide focused consultation to the Center's projects.
Child Care
Research on work and family issues, with a focus on dependent care, especially child care, is a legacy from Art Emlen. Dr. Emlen was responsible for some of the first research done in the early 1970's on access to child care and the use of family day care. He has continued this research throughout the past 30 years through an extensive series of employee surveys conducted with his colleague Paul Koren, most recently through the Oregon Child Care Research Partnership.
The Partnership brings together the Oregon Employment Department, Adult and Family Services, the Oregon Child Care Resource and Referral Network, to name a few, plus day-care consumers, day-care providers and two state commissions. The RRI furnishes research expertise for this group and helps to prepare benchmarks for the Oregon Progress Board.
One of its research mandates is to examine the child care needs of both families who receive public assistance and those who do not. In addition, the group is doing nationally recognized research into ways of measuring and improving the quality of child care.
Over the past 25 years, RRI research has addressed the needs of many special populations, had an impact on policy and practice, added to knowledge, and clarified critical issues. It is difficult to summarize 25 years of research that has been so complex and varied.
As we move into the next 25 years, we will continue to produce high quality applied social research. In addition, we are committed to involving the consumers of services in the planning and conduct of research that will effect their lives and the lives of their families.