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Michael is an assistant research
scientist at the Child and Adolescent Services Research Center.
Dr. Hurlburt is Principal Investigator of the data collection
component of a large, ongoing randomized trial examining different
approaches to implementing a well-established parent training
program (The
Incredible Years) in multiple counties in California.
The study examines the effects on therapist fidelity, and
ultimately on parent and child outcomes, of enhancing agency
and therapist support during the process of implementing the
Incredible Years. The study has wide potential implications
for implementation of the Incredible Years and other well-documented
evidence-based interventions that are increasingly viewed
as important pieces of overall systemic efforts to improve
care for children in public mental health service settings.
This randomized trial (Overall PI: Carolyn Webster-Stratton,
University of Washington) is supported by the National Institute
of Mental Health (R01 MH074497) and data collection is ongoing.
The first round of agencies and families entered the study
in Fresno, CA in April, 2006, with data collection and other
project activities scheduled to occur through 2010. Data collection
in the trial highlights CASRC’s specialization in organizing
and conducting sophisticated, multi-site, longitudinal randomized
trials.
Michael also has a 5-year career development award (K01) from
the National Institute of
Mental Health. The Child and Adolescent Treatment Strategies
(CATS) study follows from Michael's interests in the techniques
and strategies that providers use when working with children
and families in publicly supported mental health care settings.
The study is designed to provide a more complete and representative
description of the psychotherapeutic care that children and
families receive in a defined geographic area. It specifically
focuses on care received by families presenting for services
at least in part due to concerns about disruptive behavior
problems in a young child (ages 4-13). Goals of the study
include understanding the degree to which specific techniques
and strategies are employed by treatment providers, how treatment
techniques and strategies relate to elements of well-established
intervention models, how strategies and techniques are modified
to respond to the realities of concerns that children and
families bring to services in real-world settings, and how
outcomes over time relate to the inclusion of different techniques
and strategies in therapeutic services. The distinctly services
research perspective in this study is giving rise to new avenues
for thinking about how to improve care through enhanced training
and supervision models that may begin to incorporate different
kinds of technological supports.
The design of the CATS study actively explores whether it
is possible to understand mediators and moderators of treatment
outcome in the context of a diverse array of service settings.
The study is also innovative in its efforts to develop methods
for learning how aspects of services provided in real-world
settings can inform ongoing work to tailor interventions to
the needs of providers, children, and families.
In recently completed work, Michael played an active role
as an investigator on Caring
for Children in Child Welfare (CCCW), a study of contextual
factors related to utilization of mental health services by
children entering child welfare settings. The CCCW links with
a national cohort study of children and families coming into
contact with child welfare/child protective service systems
throughout the United States, the National
Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-being (NSCAW). Michael
also participated as an investigator in the Caring
for California Initiative (CCI), a collaborative group
of researchers and California State Department of Mental Health
members interested in understanding more about the details
of care that children receive in publicly supported mental
health care settings in California, with the goal of identifying
promising areas for targeted quality improvement efforts.
At Children’s Hospital, Michael has served as chair
of the IRB for 3 years and has contributed substantially to
the development of the Child and Adolescent Services Research
Center, acting as its first chair of the Council of Investigators,
and as co-chair of the Methods and Statistics Core. Michael
has trained many of CASRC’s senior support staff in
statistical methodology and approaches to database development
and management. He has developed software to support numerous
CASRC projects, including computer-assisted data collection
software, observational coding systems for therapy process
coding and coding of behavioral observations, and has overseen
development of numerous systems for supporting ongoing study
management processes. He actively consults with agencies in
the community to support a range of quality improvement efforts
and database development and management efforts.
Michael lives with his wife and two sons in San Diego and
particularly enjoys his role as a soccer coach for young children.
View Michael Hurlburt's
Vita
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2007
CASRC