Federal Project Grant Award Summary

The Medical University of South Carolina received a $747,003 Project Grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) under the Child Health and Human Development Extramural Research program (CFDA 93.865), effective July 1, 2025 through June 30, 2028. This award funds the development and evaluation of Project Support, a brief telehealth intervention designed to enhance supportive parenting and improve treatment engagement among families waiting for trauma-focused services. The intervention addresses a critical gap in mental health services by providing paraprofessional-delivered parenting support to caregivers of traumatized children, with the objective of improving parental self-efficacy, emotional support capacity, and subsequent attendance at trauma-focused treatment programs.

The research project comprises two phases: a K99 mentored research phase examining barriers and facilitators to intervention delivery through qualitative and quantitative assessment of 20 caregivers and 10 treatment providers, and an R00 independent research phase evaluating the feasibility and acceptability of Project Support via telehealth in a mixed-methods implementation science framework. By conducting this investigation in Charleston, South Carolina, the award will generate evidence on provider and organizational contextual factors influencing the uptake of brief interventions for families on mental health service waitlists, ultimately informing scalable approaches to interrupt the adverse effects of childhood trauma during critical waiting periods before specialized treatment initiation.