Before a compound/device or practice of promise can be applied in clinical practice, it must undergo various levels of field-trials, i.e., trials in larger populations to test for its effectiveness, safety and reliability. If the identified compound/device or practice is found to be effective, safe and reliable, it is then tried against existing medications or procedures; and then, if found to perform at superior levels with good reliability, a best practice status is granted.

The Substance-Impacted Children and the School project has adopted a similar clinical benchwork field-trial approach to accomplish its mission of providing educators with the best strategies and tools to address the behavior and learning problems of students negatively impacted by substances. This very purposeful and rigorous empirical approach was adopted to mirror the same quality processes, standards and assurances that Americans have come to expect in the creation of the medical interventions they receive.

The faculty of the SI-Children and the School project is presently engaged in the benchwork phase. This involves developing strategies, methods and tools for helping substance-impacted and similarly at-risk children (students who exhibit similar problems and risk factors without parental substance abuse) do well at school while enhancing the learning environment for all students. Equally important as efficacy is the assurance that the interventions developed are educator friendly. With all the pressures that educators are under in this the era of No Child Left Behind, a priority of the project is to develop interventions that support and enhance teacher efficacy, not complicate their daily work.

The benchwork phase of the research began in July of 2004 and runs through May 2005. July and early August of the current year, the project's staff has been focused on clarifying the school problems of SI-children and identifying potential interventive strategies. Findings from the project's inaugural field-based, focus group study of administrators, counselors, and student support staff from ten area elementary schools (Substance-Impacted Children: A Study from the School Perspective, Zielke, 2003) are being compared and contrasted with findings identified through literature reviews of pertinent research. As these two lines of study are converged, clusters of salient problems are noted and translated into structural maps and operational terms. Potential interventive strategies will then being identified.

The action research portion of the benchwork (described in this bulletin under Fairbanks & CELL Conduct "Action Research" To Develop Interventions To Assist SI-Children) begins in late August of 2004 and runs through April 2005. It will culminate in a series of reports to be published in the summer and fall of 2005.