Overview of Community Collaborative Partnerships and Empirical Findings

Summary

This article presents a summary history and context of the CHAMP Family Program. Primarily, CHAMP was created and developed in response to rising levels of HIV and AIDS in inner-city communities of color. Concurrently, major changes in the field of psychology were underway during the late 1980s and early 1990s including new perceptions of the effect of culture and context on development; the birth of development psychopathology as a field; and increasing interest in-and recognition of-adolescent psychology. It is within the context of these transformations that this article places the design and implementation of CHAMP. The evolution of the CHAMP Family Program a relatively small, cyclical study in Chicago, to a major, multi-site project is discussed, with particular emphasis on the role of community collaboration in the transitions thatCHAMP has experienced thus far.

Key Words:

• Community collaborative partnership
• culture
• context
• adolescent psychology
• family-based intervention
• HIV-prevention