Welcome to our September Transitions to Adulthood Center for Research Newsletter. September is National Suicide Prevention Awareness Month, a time to share resources, personal stories, and raise awareness. Our Family Advisory Board, part of our Stakeholder Engagement Program just produced a Tip Sheet encouraging all of us to create a family safety plan. Any family can experience a mental health crisis and having a plan and being prepared can possibly minimize or avert a crisis. Read more details on the tip sheet below. If an emergency does occur, the tip sheet includes a list of resources, phone numbers and suggestions of how to take action to best help your family member.

New Tip Sheet for Families:

Do you know what to do when a family member starts struggling with their mental health? Our Family Advisory Board members recently put together some tips on how to create a Family Safety Plan. A Family Safety Plan is a document that you create collaboratively with family members and is a “playbook” of the best ways to minimize or divert a mental health crisis with a family member. The goal of the plan is to identify possible triggers for a mental health issue and actions, under different scenarios, to minimize or prevent a crisis and ensure the safety of your loved one and other family members. Suggestions for the components of an Emergency Plan are also included because sometimes, despite best efforts, a mental health crisis will occur. Our Tip Sheet includes a template you can use to build your Emergency Plan. Read and download your copy HERE.

Last month we released a tip sheet about deciding whether attending college this semester was the right decision for you. It offered reflective questions you could ask yourself and questions to ask your college. By now you've made your initial decisions but it feels like every day brings new information and new decisions to make. College students with mental health conditions may be dealing with additional questions. Are my accommodations being implemented? Are online classes working for me? This tip sheet poses questions that are still relevant and you can be asking yourself as you navigate this school year. You can read and download the tip sheet HERE.

"What should I do now?" This may be something you are asking yourself if your income has been cut recently. The COVID-19 pandemic has caused many people to lose income because of pay cuts, lay-offs, or furloughs. This loss of income can be very scary and may be the first time you’ve been on your own and out of work. It can be overwhelming to figure out how to pay your different bills (e.g., school loans, credit cards, rent, food, etc.). In order to make ends meet, you may need to use any emergency savings you’ve built, apply for unemployment benefits, or use your stimulus payment. This tip sheet provides some ideas and resources on how to manage if you’ve lost your job or are getting less pay due to the current health crisis. View the whole tip sheet HERE.

Our Webinar "Supporting Youth Vocational Goals with Mental Health and Vocational Rehabilitation Collaboration: Implications for the Present" is now available on our website. This webinar presented findings from a study examining collaboration between state vocational rehabilitation agencies and public mental health systems related to the vocational goals of transition-age youth (ages 14-24) with serious mental health conditions. You can download the slides and watch the full webinar HERE.

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 1-800-273-8255

https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/ (Spanish / Deaf / Chat also available)

The Jed Foundation's Mental Health Resource Center https://www.jedfoundation.org/mental-health-resource-center/

American Foundation for Suicide Prevention: Find support for yourself or those who may be at risk for suicide https://afsp.org/get-help

From TalkSpace: Mental Health Resources For And By People of Color

SEED STUDY: Transitions ACR is currently recruiting for the Sequences of Employment and Education (SEED) research study to better understand how the employment and education experiences of young (ages 16-25) with serious mental health conditions change over time. You may be eligible if you are a young adult with a serious mental health condition who has experience in foster care and/or additional challenges with substance use.

Participation includes six 1-hour surveys over a 20-month period. All information shared will be kept confidential. Participants will be compensated up to $145 in gift cards for their time. To see if you’re eligible visit: The SEED Study

SMOKER2SMOKER STUDY: Transitions ACR is seeking the help of individuals to serve on an advisory board made up of young adult smokers – or former smokers who have quit within the last 5 years – who have lived mental health experience, in order to improve our questions for our qualitative interviews, help to solve any recruitment problems, and help us interpret our results. The goal of this research is to understand the reasons for one’s smoking and strategies that may help them quit. That understanding will be used to modify a text-based support for quitting that work well for the general population, so that it works well for young adults. Members will be paid $25/hour and will meet four times over the year. Are you interested? If so. contact Ian at ian.lane@umassmed.edu.

The University of Massachusetts Medical School, Implementation Science & Practice Advances Research Center (UMASS-iSPARC) and the Boston University, Sargent College of Rehabilitation Sciences, Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation (BU-CPR) are pleased to announce Center on Knowledge Translation on Employment Research (CeKTER).

The CeKTER’s goal is to promote the appropriate use of research-based knowledge and products to improve services, approaches, practices and policies that support improved employment outcomes of people with disabilities.

For more information and to request technical assistance for disseminating your NIDILRR funded research please contact Marsha.Ellison@umassmed.edu.

Raise the Bar Higher Conference - October 21st. Work Without Limit's conference will be virtual this year. Info/Register HERE.

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, United States Department of Health and Human Services (NIDILRR grant number 90RTEM0005). 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, and/or HHS, and you should not assume endorsement by the Federal Government.