UCLA Center for Research on Treatment & Rehabilitation of Psychosis: Research Training

Research Training

The faculty of the UCLA Center for Research on Treatment & Rehabilitation of Psychosis believe that well-designed and executed research should not be relegated to the shelves of libraries and academia, gathering dust. Rather, researchers have a responsibility to actively transmit their methods and findings to colleagues, trainees, practitioners, policy makers, advocacy groups and consumers. The research dissemination process requires more than such traditional outlets as publications and scientific presentations; in addition, researchers must be sensitive to the obstacles that clinicians encounter when adapting research innovations for use in services, and the need for advocates and consumers to understand the links between research and eventual improvements to treatment and prevention. Overcoming obstacles to dissemination and meeting the needs of practitioners and consumers for comprehensible information about research are prime concerns of our Center's investigators. The development of training manuals, workbooks, resource books, workshops, modules for practitioners, and videos have been avenues for the transfer of knowledge from our research projects to the mental health field.

Types of Research Training

Research training can be conceptualized as a series of "steps" on a pyramid that can be taken from the research activities of the core Labs and Units and from the research projects integral to and affiliated with our Research Center.
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The multiple levels of research training are depicted in the Figure above with the topmost "step" being Faculty Research Development and the bottom "step" being Education of Consumers and the Public. The pyramidal effects of research activity on the scientists and practitioners is not a passive, "trickle down" process; instead, its success depends upon planned and systematic efforts at knowledge transfer by our investigators and their commitment to building interpersonal relationships with all levels of "trainees."

Dissemination to Practitioners

The experimentally rigorous studies supported by our Research Center that elucidate factors involved in the etiology, and course of schizophrenia provide a natural source of information for more applied ventures and demonstration projects. One major role of our Research Center then, is to generate data that can be used to develop and apply a practical body of knowledge and skills relevant for clinicians who are treating and rehabilitating psychiatrically disabled persons.
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These interlocking elements are bi-directional; for example, the problems and challenges found by services researchers in applied settings stimulate more basic and clinical research. Similarly, the needs for continuing education and in-service training, model curricula for professional education, and specific skills among practitioners can pinpoint clinically relevant issues and questions that researchers need to address.

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