Merging Yoga and self-management to develop Skills (MY-Skills)
Our long-term goal is to advance best practices in complementary and integrative health to improve health for caregivers and individuals with chronic disabilities. This project is funded by the National Institutes of Health, National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (R34AT009688) and focuses on Merging Yoga and self-management to develop Skills (MY-Skills) to improve pain for individuals in a caregiving dyad.
Our program of research, comprised of numerous yoga studies for individuals with chronic physical disabilities, including chronic pain, suggests yoga is feasible and reduces pain-related disability and pain intensity. Although yoga addresses the physical body and the mind-body connection, it does not include self-management education to support skills such as problem-solving, action planning, coping, or effective communication.
Based on our previous work, we believe MY-Skills is warranted to improve outcomes. Therefore, the objective of this planning grant is to develop and test the MY-Skills intervention, thus, addressing the critical need for innovative pain interventions focusing on the caregiving dyad. To achieve our objective and support a future randomized controlled trial (RCT), we will conduct a mixed-methods study, including a small RCT. Our Aims are: (1) Develop and manualize the MY-Skills intervention and (2) Assess feasibility and acceptability of MY-Skills and research procedures including planned assessments.
Audio Described Version of Merging Yoga and self-management to develop Skills – MySkills (best experienced in Chrome)
Project Team Members:
- Christine A. Fruhauf, Ph.D. – Co-PI, Colorado State University
- Arlene Schmid, Ph.D. – Co-PI, Colorado State University
- Jenny Portz, Ph.D. – Co-I, University of Colorado – Anschutz Medical Campus
- Marieke Van Puymbroeck – Co-I, Clemson University
- Matt Bair, M.D. – Consultant, Indiana University – Indianapolis
The GRANDcares Project
The GRANDcares project is funded by USDA/NIFA – Children Youth and Families At-Risk (2015-06132), includes the development of GRANDcares, a systems-based intervention for vulnerable grandparent-headed families.
The tripartite intervention is based upon family resilience theory and focuses on strengthening self-care and parenting skills in custodial grandparents, developing communication and leadership skills in grandchildren, and increasing the ability of service providers to meet grandfamilies’ needs. Our long-term goal for GRANDcares is to create an effective evidence-based intervention to improve quality of life for custodial grandparents and their grandchildren.
The program objectives are to:
- Enhance grandparents’ parenting skills and self-care practices.
- Promote youth participants’ self-efficacy and leadership skills.
- Strengthen service providers’ abilities to support grandfamilies.
Year one of the five-year plan (i.e., July 2015 to June 2020) includes planning, staff training, recruiting participants, and enhancing relationships with community partners. In year two, the grandparent component, an adaptation of the existing evidenced-based Powerful Tools for Caregivers, will be implemented and evaluated. In year three, grandchild and service provider components will be added.
Grandchildren will learn self-care skills parallel to their grandparents, and practice leadership skills as they develop a grandfamily self-care day to celebrate program graduation. Also during year three, service providers will participate in a series of distance-based trainings. In year four, the intervention will be refined as additional cohorts participate. In year five, the evaluation specialist will provide summative results and program findings will be disseminated. The GRANDcares intervention will contribute to the parent/family national CYFAR outcome, as it will assist grandparents in meeting their children’s physical, social, emotional, and intellectual needs.
Project Team Members:
- Christine A. Fruhauf, Ph.D. – PI, Colorado State University
- Loriena Yancura, Ph.D. – Co-PI, University of Hawai’i at Manoa
- Heather Greenwood Junkermeier, MSG – Co-PI, University of Hawai’i at Manoa
- Nate Riggs, Ph.D. Evaluator, Colorado State University
- Ruth Willson, Technology Specialist, Colorado State University Extension
- Nancy Mendoza, Ph.D., Evaluation Consultant, Assistant Professor, The Ohio State University
- Aimee Fox, M.S., Graduate Research Assistant, Colorado State University
Community Site Team Leaders:
- Sue Schneider, Ph.D., Site 1, Colorado State University Larimer County Extension
- Lisa Auer, B.S., Site 1, Colorado State University Larimer County Extension
- Raquel Daniels, B.S., Site 1, Colorado State University
- Diana Sanchez Juarez, M.S., Site 2, Colorado State University Adams County Extension
- Gloria Sanchez, Site 2, Colorado State University
- Heather Greenwood Junkermeier, MSG, Site 3, University of Hawai’i at Manoa Maui County Extension
- Joan Chong, Site 4, University of Hawai’i at Manoa Hawaii County Extension
Past Projects
Colorado State University Extension Relatives as Parents Program
In 2016, we received funding from The Brookdale Foundation Group to support Colorado State University Extension Relatives As Parents Program. For this project, we collaborated with the Grand Family Coalition, Inc. to support their HUGS group and quarterly social events for grandparents raising grandchildren. During this work, we engaged student learning with the GFC to achieve various course objectives related to gerontology.
Interactive On-line Legal Program for Grandparents Raising Grandchildren
Funding from Extension provided us the means to create and implement three learning modules for grandparents raising grandchildren and service providers assisting grandparents with legal issues. The videos and corresponding content address decision making in response to obtaining legal arrangements for grandchildren, selecting qualified legal representation, and courtroom behavior. The videos may be found on our grandparents raising grandchildren webpage.
Larimer County Caregiver Coalition
From 2007 to 2011, we partnered with the Larimer County Office on Aging and served as the evaluator on the development and implementation of the Larimer County Caregiver Coalition on a grant project funded by The Colorado Trust Foundation – Healthy Aging Initiative. For this project, we evaluated the implementation of the Powerful Tools for Caregivers program, adult day services delivered through Elderhaus Adult Day Programs, and respite grants provided through the Older Americans Act National Family Caregiver Support Program.