FAST program to serve Hmong, Muscovites

Wisconsin Center for Education Research researcher Lynn McDonald and colleagues have been awarded grants to adapt their program Families and Schools Together to serve Russian students in Moscow and Hmong immigrant families in Wausau.

A $7,500 grant for work in Moscow has been awarded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, U.S. National Institutes of Health through the U.S.-Russia Competitive Program. A $99,980 grant for working with Hmong immigrants in Wausau has been awarded by the Division of Program Development, Special Populations and Projects, Center for Mental Health Services, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The FAST program supports development of relationships among parents, schools and the community to enhance children’s academic and social performance. FAST meetings are structured around social activities for parents and families. In the eight-week program families gather for a meals and social activities that include music, drawing, family games, children’s sports, a parent group and a chance for parents to interact with each other.

Organizers and participants hope that after students participate in FAST, they will experience fewer social or behavioral difficulties, which may promote their academic performance. The program also seeks to foster friendships among FAST parents so they can offer social support to one another over time.

McDonald is collaborating with Olga Romanova and Tatiana Grechnaia in to Moscow’s Institute for Prevention Research in the translation and cultural adaptation of the FAST manual into Russian; focus groups for primary school teachers and parents to discuss cultural appropriateness of FAST; and pilot implementation of the program.

The Center for Mental Health Services award will help adapt and implement FAST with a group of Hmong-American families in Wausau. McDonald will work with UW–Madison professors Thomas Kratochwill and Joel Levin to report the impact of the program on the psychosocial functioning of the Hmong immigrant children and their families and will document the increase in protective factors due to the program over the next 24 months.

The Center for Mental Health Services provides national leadership for policies, programs and activities designed to improve mental health treatment and prevention services for children, adolescents, and adults.