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Washington State University

First Years Away From Home: Washington State Dissemination Project

The Washington State Health Care Authority has provided funding to disseminate a parent/caregiver handbook (Letting Go and Staying Connected, developed as part of our First Years Away from Home randomized controlled trial) to universities across the state. So far, the handbook has been disseminated to incoming students at 6 universities in Washington, with more planned for 2023-2024, at no cost to the participating universities due to HCA funding.

 

The handbook, developed collaboratively by WSU and UW researchers, provides general guidance on how parents/caregivers can support their students’ growing autonomy while communicating clear expectations and remaining connected.  Although the handbook isn’t specifically about risk behaviors, our NIH-funded trial showed that students whose parents/caregivers received the handbook were significantly less likely to use alcohol and cannabis in their first and second years of college.

 

We are distributing the handbook to parents/caregivers in the summer of 2022 and 2023, about 6 weeks before school begins.  There is no cost to the university; WSU covers editing to personalize it to each university, printing, and mailing.