# My Choice: Developing a Workplace Disclosure Decision Aid and Resources for Working Parents of Children with Mental Health Disabilities

> **NIH ALLCDC K01** · CALIFORNIA STATE UNIV,  MONTEREY BAY · 2024 · $108,000

## Abstract

Project Summary/Abstract
Working parents of children with mental health disabilities (MHD) experience chronic stress linked to the unpredictable
tasks associated with caring for a child with a disability and workplace flexibility practices. These contextual non-work
factors contribute to increased loss of employment among this group of vulnerable workers. Courtesy stigmatization,
defined as negative perceptions, and associated discriminating attitudes and behaviors projected towards family
members of children with mental health disorders leads parents to carefully control the dissemination of their child's
health information. Disclosure comes with threats to privacy and confidentiality, and the potential for discrimination and
retaliation. Parents of children with MHD do experience discrimination and retaliation at work, such as being denied
promotions and career opportunities or getting fired from their jobs because of public misperceptions related to the
etiology of children's mental health1, 2. This can result in decisional conflict for parents of children with MHD regarding
whether or not to disclose their child's mental health status to coworkers and supervisors. Disclosure to supervisors
may provide parents of children with MHD access to needed flexibility and social support but it can also lead to
discrimination, retaliation and job termination. Decisional conflict can exacerbate stress among this group of
vulnerable workers, which can lead to lower job retention rates and chronic health issues. The objective of this
proposal is to develop a workplace web-based, interactive decision aid, focused on giving employed parents of
children with MHD knowledge and a process to reduce decisional conflict caused by contextual factors through (a)
structured feedback on whether, what and when to disclose their disability-related care demands to their supervisor
based on knowledge of risks, benefits and priority-setting activities that provides individualized feedback on disclosure
preferences, and (b) resources supporting the highest ranked priority. Aim 1 will identify 4-5 contextual factors related
to decisional conflict. Aim 2 develops a workplace web-based employee disclosure decision aid prototype, resources
that incorporate organizational and managerial factors in the design. Aim 3 will pilot a web-based workplace employee
disclosure decision aid and resources in a before-after study that will assess whether using the aid and resources
reduces decisional conflict and stress among employees. The expected outcome of accomplishing the proposed
objective is to develop a framework for, and prototype of, an individual level intervention for workers that will be paired
with an organizational level intervention that targets leadership support to promote the health and well-being of
vulnerable workers. This project is innovative, because develops and tests a workplace web application decision aid,
and provides educational resources to parents of children...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10817108
- **Project number:** 5K01OH012009-03
- **Recipient organization:** CALIFORNIA STATE UNIV,  MONTEREY BAY
- **Principal Investigator:** Lisa Maureen Stewart
- **Activity code:** K01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** ALLCDC
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $108,000
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2022-09-01 → 2025-08-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10817108

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10817108, My Choice: Developing a Workplace Disclosure Decision Aid and Resources for Working Parents of Children with Mental Health Disabilities (5K01OH012009-03). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-25 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10817108. Licensed CC0.

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