Although official notice of grant award is in its final phases, all indications are that we will soon have an NIMH-funded P50 grant for an Advanced Laboratories for Accelerating the Reach and Impact of Treatments for Youth and Adults with Mental Illness (ALACRITY) Research Center in our department. ALACRITY Centers support the rapid development, testing, and refinement of novel and integrative approaches that will significantly advance clinical practice and generate knowledge that will fuel transformation of mental health care in the United States.

The new UW ALACRITY Center will create a novel framework for adapting psychosocial interventions informed by experts in human centered design technology, communications, and implementation science. Led by Patricia Areán, PhD, the team will develop and test three new solutions for addressing problems in the clinician capacity, intervention reach and quality of psychosocial interventions delivered in primary care medicine, and will support eight new, proof of concept projects over four years.

We’ll share more about this exciting new development in the coming months, but couldn’t wait to share the good news!