Temple faculty spent a good part of the summer working hard to modify research designs and tasks on their funded projects to accommodate the host of daily challenges resulting from COVID-19. See below for snapshots from a few of these projects.
Dr. Jamie Fader’s NIJ-funded grant evaluating the long-term impact of Functional Family Therapy adapted for youth at risk of joining gangs (FFT-G) has adjusted to social distance guidelines by conducting remote (Zoom) subject matter expert interviews with leaders in Philadelphia agencies and community-based organizations who work with young people involved and/or impacted by violence. The research team has been exploring local disagreements about the term “gang” and their recommendations for interventions.
Dr. Steven Belenko has two substance abuse treatment evaluation projects that have been affected by COVID. His recently-funded project (PA Department of Health) delayed most research tasks related to testing the efficacy of Temple Hospital’s TRUST clinic for increasing treatment adherence and reducing relapse and overdose among people returning to North Philadelphia from PA state prisons and Philadelphia jails, and the team has been working closely with state prison and local jail leaders to alter participant recruitment methods, with current plans to conduct participant recruitment by video. An innovative component of the project, however, continued mostly as planned. The research team implemented a summer minority training program for students from Lincoln University, an HBCU. The research team redesigned the program to be online, developing a series of modules training the interns on social science and medical science research techniques. Two undergraduate and one graduate student received training on human subjects research, research and evaluation methods, biological and social aspects of drug use disorders, the opioid crisis, and treatment for opioid use disorders.
Dr. Belenko’s other project: “Using Implementation Interventions and Peer Recovery Support to Improve Opioid Treatment Outcomes in Community Supervision,” funded by NIDA, is implementing a multisite randomized controlled trial to test to efficacy of providing peer recovery support specialists to people on probation with opioid use disorders who are accessing medication-assisted treatment. The Temple team is collaborating on this project with research colleagues from Brown University, University of Rhode Island, and University of North Carolina, Philadelphia’s Adult Probation and Parole Department, and Gaudenzia (a large community treatment provider based in Philadelphia). The project was supposed to be in the field in April 2020, but has been delayed by COVID-19.
Due to COVID-19, The Inside-Out Center at Temple University, run by CJ Professor Lori Pompa, has revised the options for their 2021 Training Institute season. The training sessions, through at least June 2021, will all be held virtually. The first virtual training, held in August 2020, went very well. For half of the training, faculty and trainees met (via Zoom) with a group of formerly incarcerated men from the Philadelphia area, all of whom were Inside-Out alumni. Virtual training can be a positive choice for those who find the travel and time commitment of regular training challenging. For more info, see: http://www.insideoutcenter.org/training.html