{"id":269262,"date":"2017-10-04T15:33:04","date_gmt":"2017-10-04T19:33:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/?p=269262"},"modified":"2018-12-27T18:43:48","modified_gmt":"2018-12-27T23:43:48","slug":"mt-hope-family-center-community-engagement-269262","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/mt-hope-family-center-community-engagement-269262\/","title":{"rendered":"At-risk families find research-driven services at Mt. Hope Family Center"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Mt. Hope Family Center<\/a> sits on a two-way street: its psychologists, researchers, and clinicians have provided evidence-based intervention and prevention services to approximately 1,000 at-risk children and families in the Rochester area annually. Here, too, the center trains and educates the next generation of clinicians and research scientists who conduct vital studies and clinical trials.<\/p>\n

The center, which opened in 1979, is affiliated with the University\u2019s Department of Clinical and Social Sciences in Psychology<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are unique in that we integrate cutting-edge research with the provision of scientifically supported service,\u201d explains the center\u2019s director Sheree Toth<\/a>, a professor of psychology and psychiatry.<\/p>\n

\"Community<\/a>The center focuses primarily on a racially and culturally diverse group of low-income families who have been confronted by myriad challenges, including extreme poverty, trauma, and mental illness. To that end, Mt. Hope offers 10 distinct community programs, ranging from child-parent psychotherapy and cognitive behavioral therapy, to the diagnosis, evaluation and support for children (and their caregivers) with fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD).<\/p>\n

Rochester city resident Laianna Baker came to Mt. Hope for interpersonal psychotherapy<\/a> when some mornings she could barely make it out of bed. Feeling depressed and lonely, the now 21-year-old single mother found performing everyday tasks to be hard, especially taking care of her newborn son.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow do I start my day? Nobody was there for me,\u201d Baker remembers.<\/p>\n

But she wasn\u2019t the only one suffering. \u201cWhen I\u2019m sad, not in my element, he feels it,\u201d says the mother of now two-year-old Corey. \u201cHe\u2019s more agitated, he keeps falling down to the ground, he whines and cries more.\u201d<\/p>\n

Interpersonal psychotherapy at Mt. Hope helped her to learn how to cope, and to look for something to lift her up.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I feel low, I play with my kid, watch movies\u2014just do things that clear the stress that I have,\u201d Baker says. Sometimes, she wrestles with Corey on the ground. He loves it. She feels better.<\/p>\n

Scientific research backs her up.<\/p>\n

A study published in Development and Psychopathology<\/em><\/a>, conducted jointly by researchers at Mt. Hope and the University of Minnesota Institute of Child Development, concluded that mothers who receive interpersonal psychotherapy after showing signs of major depression fare significantly better than the control group, which was merely given community referrals. And, as Baker found, the children benefited, too. Not only did the mothers become better parents\u2014their children improved across a host of important developmental measures.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a cascading effect for the family,\u201d says lead researcher Elizabeth Handley,<\/a> research associate and an assistant professor at the center.<\/p>\n

Alleviating the mothers\u2019 depression, researchers discovered, meant improved attachment security for their toddlers. Overall, the researchers found that, post-treatment, the mothers in the study became better at reading and understanding their toddlers\u2019 temperaments, leading their toddlers to become less fussy and angry, and therefore, easier to parent.<\/p>\n

An additional program, Building Healthy Children (BHC)<\/a>,\u00a0 offers a constellation of services to young mothers in need. Funded by the United Way of Greater Rochester and the Monroe County Department of Human Services, it arose 10 years ago out of concern over the rising rates of child abuse and neglect in Monroe County. Both entities turned to Mt. Hope, as well as social workers and pediatricians at the Medical Center, to come up with a program to assist young mothers in raising children who are both physically and emotionally healthy.<\/p>\n