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Center for Parent and Teen Communication
The Division of Adolescent Medicine is proud to be the home of the Center for Parent and Teen Communication (CPTC). The CPTC, generously funded by the The John Templeton Foundation, The HIVE at Spring Point, and Drs. Kathy Fields and Garry Rayant, uses education, research, and advocacy to support family relationships that promote the health, character, and well-being of adolescents. CPTC investigators conduct research exploring how healthcare professionals can partner with parents to support the health and well-being of adolescents.
The CPTC also produces written articles and blogs, videos, podcasts, quizzes, interviews, and more for widespread dissemination through traditional and social media. The content translates research into practical strategies parents can use to effectively support healthy adolescent development and nurture teens prepared to lead us into the future. The CPTC is committed to shifting the beliefs and expectations society holds about youth so that we see young people for their potential rather than viewing them through a risk- or problem-focused lens.
Research Project Highlights
The Center Parent and Teen Communication has ongoing research programs that examine the role of parent-targeted interventions in primary care and that further understanding of how parent-teen relationships and communication impact health outcomes later in life.
- The Strength Intervention Project: Led by Victoria Miller, PhD, and Carol A. Ford, MD, this project focuses on the development and evaluation of parent-targeted interventions delivered in pediatric primary care. The goal of the study is to evaluate the feasibility and acceptability of a newly developed intervention focused on parent-teen communication about teen strengths and test the impact of the intervention on parental perceptions of adolescents, parent-adolescent communication, and parent and adolescent well-being.
- The Scientific Linkages to Health Project: Led by Carol A. Ford, MD, this project is aimed at increasing national awareness of associations between parent-child communication and relationships during adolescence to the longitudinal development of physical and emotional health and well-being into adulthood. This project includes a systematized review of findings from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) dataset on associations between parent-teen relationship quality and adult health outcomes. It also includes novel secondary data analyses with the goal of building the scientific justification for focusing on parent-adolescent communication and relationships as one strategy to improve adult health outcomes.
