# Family Therapy Training and Implementation Platform (FTTIP): An innovative web-based tool for long-term practice improvement

> **NIH NIH R44** · TRAINING AND IMPLEMENTATION ASSOCIATES, LLC · 2022 · $752,595

## Abstract

Project Summary/Abstract
Family therapy has emerged as one of the most efficacious interventions for child and adolescent behavioral
and psychiatric issues and for chronic health conditions. However, widespread implementation of family
therapy is often hampered by high training costs, re-training needs following staff turnover, low agency
readiness to support new practices, and training strategies that lack ongoing implementation support and are
prohibitively expensive. To better address the treatment needs of children and families, and to address long
standing training and implementation challenges, we developed an innovative Family Therapy Training and
Implementation Platform (FTTIP). FTTIP: 1) is guided by advances in implementation science, agency
readiness, and knowledge of what it takes to sustain an evidence-based treatment; 2) uses adaptive training
and consultation processes that provide a dynamic and data-driven procedure in which a competency is
taught, measured, and the success or failure of the learning informs the next step of training in real time; 3)
provides interactive practice of skills in which the trainee records interventions in response to simulation and
receives personalized feedback; and 4) provides optional learning paths that allow the learner to explore
additional ways to master the skills. Our Phase I study demonstrated the feasibility of FTTIP and set the stage
for a fully-powered multisite Phase II Randomized Controlled Trial that will investigate whether FTTIP is “not
inferior” to traditional face-to-face training on all key domains, including trainee competencies, agency
readiness, and client outcomes. The Phase II study aims to: 1) Complete learning, practice and competency-
testing paths that provide the learner multiple learning options and to increase the dynamic nature of the
platform; 2) Demonstrate that 75 FTTIP trainees show improvement in all core family therapy competencies
that are not inferior to 75 providers receiving traditional in-person family therapy training as tested using pre
and post training measures in a clinical trial; 3) Demonstrate that 150 families (child/parent dyad) receiving
CIFFTA family therapy show adequate retention in treatment, therapeutic alliance, and significant pre-post
treatment improvements on family environment and presenting problems; 4) Establish the process (e.g.,
initiation and delays in training new staff) and cost associated with training in each of the two conditions; 5)
Demonstrate that 15 agency leaders receiving FTTIP agency readiness consultations show more pre and post
change in agency readiness and knowledge than 15 leaders receiving agency engagement as usual. FTTIP’s
commercial application is that national, state, and local treatment services funders and providers will find
FTTIP to be a highly cost effective, flexible, and engaging way to improve the quality of their evidence-based
treatments (EBTs). By better preparing the nation’s workforce on EBTs, and ...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10479629
- **Project number:** 2R44MH115547-02
- **Recipient organization:** TRAINING AND IMPLEMENTATION ASSOCIATES, LLC
- **Principal Investigator:** David Santisteban
- **Activity code:** R44 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $752,595
- **Award type:** 2
- **Project period:** 2018-08-09 → 2024-03-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10479629

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10479629, Family Therapy Training and Implementation Platform (FTTIP): An innovative web-based tool for long-term practice improvement (2R44MH115547-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10479629. Licensed CC0.

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