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["Sally Flanzer" <sflanzer@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

RFA:  Research on Child Neglect 

This Spring, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is announcing a 
special
trans-NIH, interdepartmental Request for Applications (RFA) focusing on
"Research on Child Neglect."  This initiative encourages research on the
etiology, extent, services, treatment, management, and prevention of child
neglect. This Request for Applications (RFA) is intended to stimulate the
development of programs of child neglect research at institutions that 
currently have strong research programs in related areas (e.g., child 
development, injury prevention, developmental neurobiology, child abuse, 
substance abuse, population research, craniofacial and dental public health,
 health services) but are not engaged in extensive research focusing on 
child neglect.  

A second goal of this RFA is to bring the expertise of researchers from the 
child health, education, and juvenile justice fields into the child neglect 
research field and to promote their collaborations with each other and with 
child neglect and child abuse researchers.

This RFA, coordinated under the auspices of the NIH Child Abuse and Neglect
Working Group, is a joint effort of several components of the NIH, 
including the Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research, the 
National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, the National Institute 
of Child Health and Human Development, the National Institute of Dental and 
Cranialfacial Research, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the National 
Institute of Mental Health, and the National Institute of Neurological 
Disorders and Stroke.  Joining with NIH in this groundbreaking endeavor are 
the Children's Bureau of the Administration on Children, Youth and 
Families; the National Institute of Justice, and the Office of Juvenile 
Justice and Delinquency Prevention, both within the Office of Justice 
Programs, Department of Justice; and the Office of Special Education 
Programs, within the Department of Education. 

Child neglect is a serious public health, justice, social services, and
education problem, not only compromising the immediate health of our 
nation's children, but also threatening their growth and intellectual 
development, their long-term physical and mental health outcomes, their 
propensity for pro-social behavior, their future parenting practices, and 
their economic productivity as eventual wage earners.  The sponsoring 
organizations are jointly issuing this RFA because neglect is a 
multi-faceted problem involving many agencies in its consequences, 
prevention, and control. The RFA is intended to go beyond what any
single organization would be likely to accomplish individually, since child
neglect requires multi-disciplinary solutions which cross-cut the missions 
of NIH and these partner agencies.

The NIH Child Abuse and Neglect Working Group (CANWG) was established in
response to a recent directive by the House Committee on Appropriations, 
which requested that NIH report on current NIH efforts, accomplishments, 
and future plans for research on child abuse and neglect.  The CANWG's 
subsequent1998 report recommendations were based on both an analysis of the 
NIH portfolio as well as on the 1993 National Academy of Sciences (NAS) 
report, "Understanding Child Abuse and Neglect."   The NAS report included 
knowledge about the origins, consequences, treatment and prevention of 
child maltreatment as among the top priority areas where research was 
especially needed.  Child neglect was also noted as a high priority 
research area in the 1998 Institute of  Medicine report, "Violence in 
Families: Assessing Prevention and Treatment Programs." This RFA is also 
responsive to recommendations from the  October 1997 National Institute of 
Justice  "Child Abuse and Neglect Interventions Strategic Planning Meeting,
" as well as a June 1993 National Center for Child Abuse and 
Neglect-sponsored symposium on chronic neglect.

The RFA is being announced through the NIH Home Page (http://www.NIH.gov), 
and
in the weekly NIH Guide for Grants and Contracts.   The application 
submission deadline is September 14,1999.  Approximately $3,315,000 (annual 
total cost) has been pledged by the co-sponsors, for grants that will begin 
in fiscal year 2000. An estimated 11 to 15 grants will be awarded for up to 
5 years, on issues such as: the antecedents and consequences of neglect; 
instrument development; treatment, preventive intervention, and service 
delivery (including legal processes, protective services, mental health 
services and court-ordered interventions) for child neglect; and mediating 
factors such as foster care, domestic violence, welfare reform, and 
disabilities or other special characteristics of neglected populations and 
their caretakers.


Susan D. Solomon
Susan D. Solomon, Ph.D.
Senior Advisor
Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research
National Institutes of Health
7550 Wisconsin Avenue, Room 8C16
Bethesda, MD 20892-4192
Phone: 301/496-0979	Fax: 301/480-8905		email: ssolomon@xxxxxxx
www1.od.nih.gov/obssr/obssr.htm