Scientific project leader:
Jun.-Prof. Dr. Lena Ansmann
Prof. Dr. Holger Pfaff

Operative project leader:
Kira Hower

Student assistant:
Pamela Saak

Cooperation partner:
Information and aid in drug issues e. V. Wesel, Jörg Kons and Sandra Groß

Funding institution:
Auridis GmbH

Project duration:
06/2015 bis 12/2017

Project description:
Currently, about 50,000 children of drug-addicted parents are living in Germany. Repeatedly the media reports tragic deaths of infants and young children of drug addicts. To consider the situation of children of addicts, an opening and widening of the activities of drug-counseling centers is necessary. So far, only 10% of the federal states have drug-counseling centers that offer activities directed to children of drug-addicted parents or that involve them in care planning. Accordingly, drug counseling is not prepared to care for children of addicts.
A few years ago, the drug-counseling center Wesel developed a program to embed the needs of children into the work of drug-counseling centers – the Fitkids program. This program provides a supportive framework and manual to continuously keep the conversation about children running and to create possibilities for training, information, and implementation support. The process evaluation of the pilot phase in 2011 and 2012, in which the program has been implemented in 7 locations, showed that the structured process of Fitkids is practical and realistic.
In 2015, the program will be implemented in about 13 additional drug-counseling centers, considering important principles of organizational development and change management. The IMVR is now engaged to evaluate the effectiveness and the implementation of the program in the newly recruited locations.
The summative evaluation consists of two modules:
Quasi-experiment with pre-post design
The quality of the implementation and the effectiveness will be explored in a summative evaluation.

Regarding the implementation, the following aspects are of interest:
•    Implementation barriers and facilitators
•    Principles of good implementation
•    Readiness for change among employees
•    Development of structures and processes for children orientation
•    Workload and work climate

Regarding the quality of results, the following aspects are of interest: 
•    Children orientation
•    Network orientation
•    Satisfaction and acceptance of employees and parents
•    Image of counseling centers
•    Professional confidence

In a quasi-experimental study with pre-post design both the managers of the counseling centers and the employees will be surveyed before the start of the program (t0) and one year after program start (t1) using a standardized questionnaire. Survey data will be linked and compared between both time points.
Pilot sites as a reference group
In the second survey (t1), 16 other counseling centers are included. These so-called “pilot sites” are counseling centers that have been involved in the process evaluation of the pilot phase of Fitkids. These counselling centers implemented the Fitkids program longer than one year ago. The goal of taking the pilot sites into consideration is to examine the long-term implementation success as well as the implementation determinants. The results provide indications for the long-term success of Fitkids and give indications for the duration of its implementation.

More information:
www.imvr.de/en/research/finished-research-projects/