We are working in Hearne, a small, rural community in east central Texas. We originally planned to address substance use health disparities. Through our first year of research we learned from the community that was a symptom, but one of the underlying reasons was lack of opportunities for youth. We reprogrammed our project to look at increasing opportunities. We’re using a process called “human-centered design” or “design thinking” to engage youth to develop their own program, set of products, or whatever the result is. We don’t have the answer at the beginning of the process. We’ll work with youth over the next year and a half to develop their program and then pilot test it.
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Meet the Research Leaders: Kelli Caseman, MA
The name of our project is Improving Health Among Youth in Rural Appalachia: Enhancing School-Based Health Centers. I am the community leader. The two researchers, one is at Penn State University, and the other is at Child Trends.
What we’re studying is the school-based health center model. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of school-based health centers before, but they are nation-wide. Here in West Virginia, they started in the mid-90s. Our state has more school-based health centers per capita than any state in the country, and we have some of the oldest in the country. They’re a great health delivery model to ensure kids have access to comprehensive health care.
We’ve never had anyone study the efficacy of them, the challenges they face, and the opportunities to expand the model and address some of the incredible health inequities that our kids face here in West Virginia, whether that be due to poverty, the rural landscape, or to the ongoing drug crisis.
My interest is to try and promote the model to address some of these inequities. For our IRL project, we’ve done a number of interviews with providers around the state who work in these school-based health centers to hear what works, what doesn’t work, opportunities to do better, and the potential policy reform efforts that I could undertake to help them reach out to the kids who are in need of services.
Meet the Research Leaders: Nikki Raymond, MBA, MS
We are interested in examining the engagement levels in mental health services in community-based versus home-based care and between rural versus urban settings. There has been an initiative in recent years with a focus on community-based mental health. “Community-based” refers to bringing services to homes and schools, which increases the level of engagement. Engagement can be defined in many different ways. We are looking at a number of appointments at the outset of services in a one month or 90 day period. Other folks might see engagement as no-show rates, things of that nature.
Meet the Research Leaders: Jessica Palardy, MSW
I am from Team Philly in Cohort 4. I work with Ashlee Murray, MD, MPH and Melissa Dichter, PhD, MSW who are both researchers. I’m the community partner. We are looking at how we can improve the connection between pediatric medical providers and families who identify as experiencing domestic violence. We’re trying to develop a feedback tool where survivors would be able to have their voices heard in the screening and referral process, where they can say, “I was referred by my doctor, but I didn’t appreciate how they spoke to me about it,” or, “It was very impactful how the nurse spoke to me, and she was so kind, and that worked well.” The provider will be able to take that information. Hopefully it will improve their screening practices.
Announcing the 2020 IRL Teams!
Welcome Cohort Five Research Leaders!
These 15 teams of researchers and community leaders will spend the next three years (2020-2023) working together to explore critical issues in their home communities and apply findings in real time to create healthier and more equitable policies and places to live.
Resilient and Brilliant, Working Hard to Overcome Family Trauma in the South Texas LGBTQ+ Community
In 2017, researchers, advocates, and community members formed the Strengthening Colors of Pride team and set out to understand the lived experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and other gender and sexual minority (LGBTQ+) people in the San Antonio Metro Area. Project leaders, with the help of a research team and community advisory board members, developed the largest survey of LGBTQ+ identified individuals ever conducted in South Texas. The survey provides important insight about the demographics of LGBTQ+ people in the area and their experiences with housing and homelessness, healthcare, employment, familial rejection and support, financial stability, resiliency, and much more.
The one thing that was clear is that the LGBTQ+ community is extremely resilient and community members often have strong social networks.
