Harnessing Science to Strengthen the Public Health Impact
On August 1st, Silver School faculty Stacey Barrenger, Jennifer Manuel, Rohini Pahwa, and Michelle Munson will lead a featured symposium on the first day of the 23rd NIMH (National Institute of Mental Health) conference on Mental Health Services Research in Bethesda, Maryland.
The symposium, "Engagement and Community Integration with Vulnerable Populations: Crucial Concepts in Advancing Mental Health Services Research" will highlight our faculty’s high-impact research examining the important role of engagement and community integration to advance mental health services research, especially within evidence-based practices for vulnerable populations.
The panel conversation will cover research topics ranging from the initial engagement into assertive community treatment (ACT) from the client perspective; the unique contribution of peer specialists engaging with vulnerable populations; the phenomenon of psychological community integration, the use of social networks to target service engagement and community reintegration for individuals with serious mental illnesses; and community engagement of persons with serious mental illnesses post-incarceration.
In the afternoon, Michelle Munson will also be speaking on a panel organized by Dr. Larry Davidson, Yale University, entitled "Identifying the Benefits of Peer Support." This panel will highlight research on peer support being conducted by four teams of investigators from across the nation, all of whom have federally funded NIMH research projects utilizing various types of peer support. Doctoral students Andrea Cole and Shelly Ben-David will also be presenting with Dr. Munson.
Additionally, Mimi Choy-Brown, PhD Candidate and NYU Research Scientist, was selected to participate in the prestigious NIMH New Investigators Workshop on August 3rd, where she will present a concept paper and receive feedback on the project from the NIMH workshop faculty. She will also present a poster entitled, "Supervision: An embedded resource for organizational readiness." Her findings from Dr. Victoria Stanhope's person-centered care planning effectiveness trial suggest that the quantity and quality of supervision can enhance organizational readiness for the adoption of an emerging, evidence-based practice. At NYU Silver, Choy-Brown’s research is focused on examining supervision as an implementation strategy to improve the delivery of recovery-oriented, evidence-based practices in community mental health services.