‌ ‌

Transitions ACR April 2019 Newsletter

From The Director's Desk

Hello from Transitions ACR ! Happy Spring. This month's newsletter includes many of the presentations we did at the "Tampa Conference" last month. We also have a new blog post from one of our young adults that works with us, and a video about a new pilot program we launched to support deaf women dealing with perinatal depression. Read on...

Empowering Youth in Transition

"Business as Usual" Is Not Enough: Engaging and Innovating  with Young Adults in Research and Practice (Our Plenary Presentation from the Tampa Conference) "Business as usual" in treatment services and research methods no longer seems to be enough to engage young adults. To successfully engage young adults in mental health services and research initiatives you need to be willing to shake things up by genuinely partnering with young adults to find innovative ways that can alter "business as usual" and lead to more engagement overall. Our presentation takes you step by step through the process of successfully engaging young adults in ways that work! (See the slides on the left.) View our Plenary Presentation here .

Youth at School The College Years: How Students with Lived Experience Navigate Academics & Mental Health Management Roughly 1/3 of undergraduates have clinically significant symptoms of mental health problems such as depression and anxiety and students with mental health conditions who attend college experience high dropout rates - one of the highest of any disability group. Positive mental health is strongly correlated to academic success, retention, and ultimately vocational success, adult resiliency & Return on Investment. This presentation from the Tampa Conference talks about how we make this happen. View Our Presentation here .

On the Job Support Methodological Innovations in Research on Services for Youth & Young Adults This presentation presented early results of evaluating a new Individual Placement and Support (IPS) Fidelity Scale that is being tested specifically for Young Adults. The goal is better job supports for young adults with mental health conditions. View Our Presentation here .

Engaging Youth In The Community Tips and Tricks to Developing and Sustaining Youth Advisory Councils in Mental Health Organizations We love Youth Advisory Councils and employ our own here at Transitions ACR. This presentation described how engaging young adult voice can benefit an organization, how to create and facilitate a Youth Advisory Board and reviewed two of our published products describing the steps. View Our Presentation here . Subjective Experiences of Having and Managing a Serious Mental Health Condition in Young Adulthood This study explored the life experiences of young adults with serious mental health conditions through 90 minute qualitative interviews. We asked about navigating employment, education and training activities while managing serious mental health conditions. This symposium presented our findings. View Our Presentation here .

Advancing Research

Exploring Potential Correlates of Employment and Education Experiences Among Youth and Young Adults with Serious Mental Health Conditions Our rearch sought to understand the correlates of successful education and employment outcomes for youth and young adults with serious mental health conditions. We also hoped to assess which social and psychosocial factors influence or are influenced by education and employment activities. View Our Presentation here .

Young Adult Corner "I’m a research staff member at the ACR and I write about my experiences working with both medical and mental health conditions." Read the most recent blog post in our Young Adult Blog Corner on the  Transitions to Adulthood Center for Research  website. This section of our website includes real world experience from our young adult team members. This one's called "Accommodations in the Workplace" It was just posted by one of our young adults researchers.  Read more here .

What Is iSPARC Doing?

Hot Off the Press Melissa Anderson, Kelly Wolf Craig, and Nancy Byatt were awarded a UMCCTS Pilot Project Program grant for their project - Creating the Capacity to Screen Deaf Women for Perinatal Depression. This was a one-year, community-engaged study to develop an American Sign Language (ASL) translation of the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS). Read more and watch the video here.

Upcoming Events

Register Now for this upcoming LIVE WEBINAR! “Multi-Component Engagement Program”- Considerations for Service Provision to Young Adults Early in Their Recovery Presenter: Michelle R. Munson, PhD - Professor and Associate Dean of Faculty Affairs at NYU's Silver School of Social Work Date & Time: Wednesday, May 22, 2019, 1pm to 2pm EDT (10am – 11am PDT) Register: https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/7773300216273794306 Michelle R. Munson, PhD is an internationally recognized expert in services and interventions for young people transitioning to adulthood with serious mental health conditions, which generally occurs between 16 and 30 years of age. In this webinar, Dr. Munson will discuss four important aspects of intervention development, as related to creating the “Just Do You” intervention. “Just Do You” is a brief meta-intervention for young adults experiencing one of their first-contacts with the mental health system. It was designed to help orient young people to their clinics, their programs, their providers, and typical mental health service components, while also encouraging them that they can be partners in their mental health care decisions. The randomized control trial (RCT) testing the efficacy of the “Just Do You” intervention that Dr. Munson and her colleagues are working on will be presented in this webinar as well.

Who We Are

The Transitions to Adulthood Center for Research   promotes the full participation in socially valued roles of transition-age youth and young adults (ages 14-30) with serious mental health conditions. The Transitions to Adulthood Center for Research ( Transitions ACR ) is located within the  Implementation Science and Practice Advances Research Center  ( iSPARC ) and houses The Learning & Working During the Transition to Adulthood Rehabilitation Research & Training Center ( The Learning & Working RRTC ), among other projects.   The Learning & Working RRTC   is a national effort that aims to improve the supports of this population to successfully complete their schooling and training and move into rewarding work lives.  Funded by the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR), and from the Center for Mental Health Services of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). iSPARC As a Massachusetts Department of Mental Health Research Center of Excellence, iSPARC aims to improve the mental and behavioral health of all citizens of Massachusetts and beyond.

Subscribe and Share! Please share our newsletter with your network. To subscribe, click here. Visit us online !

‌ ‌ ‌

Some of the contents of this message were developed under a grant with funding from the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research, and from the Center for Mental Health Services Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, United States Department of Health and Human Services (NIDILRR grant number 90RT5031). NIDILRR is a Center within the Administration for Community Living (ACL), Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The contents of this message do not necessarily represent the policy of NIDILRR, ACL, HHS, and/or SAMHSA and you should not assume endorsement by the Federal Government. The Transitions to Adulthood Center for Research is part of the Implementation Science and Practice Advances Research Center, a Massachusetts Dept. of Mental Health Research Center of Excellence.