Prof. Augsberger Receives NIH Funding to Expand Project IMPACT
Astraea Augsberger, a faculty member at BU School of Social Work (BUSSW), has received new grant funding from the National Institutes of Health to fund the expansion of Project IMPACT, a preventative service program for parents with intellectual disabilities.
The grant will fund a study examining Project IMPACT’s effectiveness at reducing foster care placement for children of parents with intellectual disabilities, who are more likely to be placed in foster care, an outcome associated with long-term negative outcomes related to mental health, education and substance use. The study will build upon the project team’s previous research which showed that 88% of participating families and 98% of those who completed the program remained together a year after the program ended.
Augsberger, an expert in community-engaged health equity research and the BU principal investigator for the project, says the findings from the analyses will be shared with key stakeholders in a series of listening sessions designed to present and contextualize key findings and gather feedback for additional rigorous research, policy advocacy, and service provision.
The project is facilitated through the Center for Innovation in Social Work & Health (CISWH) at BUSSW and led in partnership with Wendy Zeitlin, the Montclair State University principal investigator, and community partners Trupti Rao and Danielle Weisberg of the Westchester Institution for Human Development.
Astraea Augsberger, PhD, is an assistant professor at BUSSW dedicated to promoting the rights of youth and families to have a voice in institutional practices and policies impacting their lives. She specializes in youth engagement, health equity, and child welfare policy and programs.