UGA Logo UGA Office of Public Affairs top bar image UGA Home
Columns faculty staff newspaper News Service
Contact Us
Text-Only
top bar image
SEARCH
  Columns   UGA    
 
  january 14, 2008
  In this issue
  News
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  Around Academe
  News to Use
  Go Figure
  Digest
  UGA Guide
  Kudos
  Faculty Profile
  Retirees
  conversation with the dean
  Weekly Reader
  Cybersights
  Bulletin Board
 
  Back Issues
  Publication Dates
  Contact Us

campus newS

Researchers receive $3.4 million grant for Strong African American Families program
By Denise H. Horton
dhorton@uga.edu
A $3.4 million grant from the National Institute of Mental Health will allow researchers at UGA to translate a community-based program focused on harnessing the strengths of rural African-American families and communities into a computer-based model for in-home delivery.

Velma McBride Murry
“This grant will allow us to move the Strong African American Families program to the next step,” said Velma McBride Murry, chief investigator and a professor of child and family development in the College of Family and Consumer Sciences.

The SAAF program is based on research conducted by Murry and her colleagues to determine why some African-American children who grow up in difficult circumstances—single-parent families and poverty, for example—succeed despite those circumstances. Their findings pointed to the importance of youth self-discipline and identified particular parenting behaviors that reduce youth risk behaviors. Some of those behaviors are universal—maintaining close and positive parent-child relationships, for example—whereas others are racially specific, such as dealing with discrimination.

After developing a curriculum designed to enhance parenting behaviors that reinforce positive youth development, Murry and her colleagues began a longitudinal study of SAAF that has included the participation of more than 650 families since 2001.

Currently, SAAF participants meet in group settings. For part of each session, the parents and youth meet separately and later, the two groups rejoin for further discussion.

During each of the seven sessions, participants are led by facilitators through discussions and role playing that address a variety of issues.

“In most programs of this type, participation rates are about 30 percent,” Murry said. “We have more than 65 percent of our families attending five or more of the seven sessions. They come to the sessions even though they have complicated lives. For example, many of our SAAF participants work varying shifts at their jobs.”

Working with colleagues at the University of California, Los Angeles who have converted other programs to CD-ROM, Murry said the computer-based SAAF program still will include much of the group-based dynamics.

“Because we’ve videotaped our community group-based sessions, we can draw on those videos to give those using the computer-based program the sense of being a part of a group,” she said. “One of the strengths of SAAF is gaining information from other parents or other youth. We hope to be able to mimic as much of that as possible in the technology translation.”

The research is designed to include participants who will use the interactive computer-based program, those who will continue to participate in the community, group-based program and a group who will receive videos to watch on their televisions without interacting with the program material.

“If this program is successful, it’s a way of reaching a lot of families with limited resources,” Murry said.
 


Columns is produced by the UGA News Service, a unit of UGA Public Affairs.
286 Oconee St., Ste. 200N, Athens, GA 30602-1999
Juliett Dinkins (jdinkins@uga.edu): editor (706) 542-8017,
Janet Beckley (jbeckley@uga.edu): art director (706) 542-8170, Peter Frey (pfrey@uga.edu): photo editor (706) 542-8086,
Matthew Weeks (mweeks@uga.edu): senior reporter (706) 542-8024, Sara Freeland (freeland@uga.edu): reporter (706) 542-8077
Questions or comments should be directed to columns@uga.edu

Back Issues | Publication Dates | Subscribe to Columns | Contact Us | Text-only Version

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright 2008-2009 University of Georgia. All rights reserved
The University of Georgia • Athens, GA 30602 | UGA Directory Assistance 706/542-3000
UGA Home | UGA Today | Public Affairs Directory