The S4C Research Group - We have begun!

Today we held our first unofficial board meeting of the S4C Research Group! We have lots of great ideas and enthusiasm, 4 core members (alphabetically Trina Demirer, Beau Duvall, Skye Kolb and Laurie Lester), and two fabulous advisors in Dr. Matt Baity and Dr. B. J. Davis!

I thought starting a blog might be easiest for us to communicate rather than copies of emails etc. floating around... we want to make sure everyone is on the same page so we're not working against each other and so that no one who is interested gets left out!

FOR CONFIDENTIALLY: I have set the privacy settings so that only those we invite can see this blog, but please DO NOT use any identifying information, etc. We can discuss who and how we want to use this (or if we do at all)... it was just a thought I took off with ;-) 

Our ultimate goal is to learn to do good research, to use that research to spawn new research; to learn, to inform, and to make the world a better place by hopefully helping someone along the way.

For this year, our goal is to produce empirical evidence that supports the use of Choice Theory as a significantly effective treatment for substance abuse dependency and addiction (among other things, of course!) In the substance abuse treatment world, the typical course of treatment is based on classic CBT, medicinal or self-help models (AA, NA). Choice Theory offers another way, but more on that later!

From our meeting today, we have focused our tasks in monthly increments developing into phases as we collect and analyze data.

Phase I
For the rest of May, we will work on getting all our data up-to-date at both the North and South agencies ensuring that data is collected and entered as follows for all CDCI clients:

1. At intake: CalOHMs, SOS, URICA and QoLI.
2. Within first 30 days: PAI, ASI, BSI
3. Every 4-6 weeks from intake: BSI, SOS, URICA and QoLI

We will concentrate our efforts:

1. on clients with partial sets of data (those who have taken the PAI) to gather the CalOHMs, ASI data, etc to ensure full data sets.
• Laurie will create listing of clients for north and south who have taken the PAI
• Each researcher will pull files, copying CalOHMs, ASIs, BSIs. Place copies for input in the RESEARCH mailbox and mark off client list as data is gathered.
2. on current clients who have not yet been administered the PAI (mostly from the South) to ensure full data sets; while also
3. ensuring that new clients coming in at both sites are being tested in timely fashion.

Once we get data in and start running some numbers then we will know better we are headed. Target to have this all done is the 1st week in June... and have a meeting with the Drs. asap possible after that.

Coverage:

South: (where we are WAY behind)

1. Mondays - Laurie
2. Tuesdays - Skye
3. Thursdays - Trina

We need to get Donna, Mel, and the CDCI interns invested in the process so they will support our efforts ;-)

North:

1. Mondays - Trina, Skye
2. Tuesdays - Laurie, Trina, Skye, Beau
3. Wednesdays - Laurie, Trina
4. Thursdays - Beau
5. Saturdays - Laurie

I've never done this blog thing before so let's see if it works!!
I'm so excited to be working with you!!
Thanks