William T. Grant Foundation
Research Grants
The Foundation's primary mission is improving
children's mental health. It pursues this goal primarily by
support of research. The current focus is the field of
problem behaviors in the school-age child. Concentration on
this topic will allow a variety of studies to be supported
whose outcome is to understand and prevent some of the major
problems of today's school-aged child. These problems seem
to have their origin in failure to cope with stress: school
failure, unwanted school-age pregnancy, substance abuse,
psychosomatic illness, psychosocial problems resulting from
physical illness, accidents, delinquency, suicide, or
stresses of living. Support from the Foundation is
channeled through four mechanisms:
1. Investigator-Initiated Research
We continue to use research grants as our major vehicle for
such support, and to review investigator-initiated research
grant requests which fall in the area of problem behaviors
of school-aged children.
2. Research on Community-Based Social Interventions
A second vehicle for support is the development and
evaluation of innovative community-based interventions aimed
at reducing problem behaviors in schoolaged children. There
is increasing evidence that several problem behaviors often
co-exist in the same youngster, and that they have their
origin in a common core of causes. This suggests to us that
successful programs need to address basic causes and to be
aimed at reducing more than one problem behavior.
There are relatively few such programs in existence
today. We will assist organizations which are willing to
work with other organizations to develop and evaluate such
programs. Putting together programs that use multiple
community sites and address multiple problem behaviors
usually requires multiple funding agencies. We are willing
to work with applicants, other funding agencies and service
providers to develop such programs. Our major role will be
to support the research component of such programs.
3. Consortia
Another method to further research in the area of school-age
children's stress and coping mechanisms is the support of
Consortia - i.e., individuals from various institutions and
disciplines coming together to coordinate their research.
The Foundation encourages receipt of more proposals
utilizing the consortia method, as the Foundation looks to
broaden its base of research support in its primary area of
interest.
4. Officers' Discretionary Grants
A number of small grants are provided for support of
research and education, training, or community service
projects within the program interests of the Foundation.
The community service programs are limited to projects
representing the efforts of local agencies and institutions
serving the youth of New York City and the metropolitan
area. Small start-up research projects are not limited to
any geographic area.
Contact William T. Grant Foundation
515 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10022-5403
Tel: 212-752-0071