Research and expert's activity

The following directions of projects could be suggested:

• Impact of sociocultural and psychological factors on outcomes of social assistance programs for children and families.

Many recent studies have focused on investigation of effectiveness of social support programs for different groups of children and at-risk families. The risk factors included medical conditions of children, disturbances in parental behaviors (abuse and neglect toward children) and/or mental health (depression and other psychiatric disorders), and sociocultural factors (poverty, immigration, imprisoned parents, etc). The aim of this study could be to clarify specific factors that contribute to and define outcomes of social assistance programs. The following questions could be investigated:

• Does the quality of a child-parent relationship before the intervention relate to the outcomes of the program?

• What is the impact of a specific support program (i.e., parent education, manualized treatments for the professionals, short- and long-term social support and counseling) on the treatment outcomes?

• How do features and quality of professional training relate to the outcomes of the interventions?

• How do cultural differences between families and professionals (in the instances, when professionals and family members belong to different cultures) influence treatment effectiveness? The results of the project will allow to improve quality and effectiveness of social support programs by developing treatments tailored to children and family needs. 

• Social support for families with internationally adopted children

Main body of literature on psychosocial development of adopted children is focused on the difficulties in their behavioral functioning and adaptation. Studies of social support strategies and programs for families with children adopted from other countries are limited. Typically, the description of such support programs contains general principles without consideration of social and cultural contexts from which the child was adopted.