The Brief Intervention for School Clinicians (BRISC) has been the subject of two research studies funded by the Institute for Education Sciences (IES). In the most recent study, 48 high schools in three states (WA, MD, MN) were recruited and assigned to BRISC (n=23) or school-based services as usual (SAU; n=25). Clinicians working in schools assigned to BRISC gave positive ratings of BRISC feasibility, learnability, and acceptability. Students receiving BRISC (n=259) were more likely to receive SMH services at 2 months, more likely to have discharged from SMH by 6 months, and less likely to have received other MH services at 6 months. BRISC students showed greater rates of resolution of their self-reported problems and were more likely to move out of the clinical range for anxiety.
Practice Type: Educational settings (e.g. universities, schools)
Workforce for Student Well-being Initiative (WSW)
In 2023, Washington state was awarded $6 million from the U.S. Department of Education to create a pipeline from Washington state’s five accredited Masters in Social Work training programs to K-12 schools. Called the Workforce for Student Well-being Initiative (WSW), 100 aspiring school social workers will receive conditional scholarships based on their financial need so the cost of getting an education is not a barrier to their getting an advanced degree and then committing to working in a high-need public or tribal school. The goal of the WSW is to help all K-12 students in Washington to thrive by advancing the careers of skilled school social work professionals through training and mentorship.
Washington State Behavioral Health-Student Assistance Program
The Washington State Behavioral Health Student Assistance Program (BH-SAP) is a research-based, statewide model that places trained Student Assistance Professionals (SAPs) in schools to deliver prevention, early intervention, and referral support within Washington’s Multi-Tiered System of Support (MTSS) framework. Through our collaboration with the Assocation for Educational Service Districts, the UW SMART Center’s Training and Technical Assistance Core supports this project through program evaluation efforts including overseeing collection of student, school, and district outcome data, analyzing data, and producing reports to inform continuous improvement.
Empower Through Health
Empower Through Health (ETH) is a healthcare, research, and education 501c3 organization operating in rural eastern Uganda. ETH runs a health center that provides general medical care for surrounding communities and delivers psychiatric and neurological services across Buyende District (population >400,000). ETH’s research focuses on reducing demand-side barriers to care and partnering with existing community structures to improve mental health outcomes and support recovery after mental health crises. ETH hosts the Global Health Experiential Fellowship (GHEF), a hands-on training program that pairs Ugandan and U.S. trainees on community-engaged research. ETH is also expanding its education mission by launching a primary school to strengthen long-term community wellbeing.
Behaviors and Executive Skills in T21 (BEST21)
We are conducting a study to understand the role of problem-solving in challenging behaviors for children with Down syndrome so that we can better understand the development of and treat these behaviors. If you agree to participate, this study will involve questionnaires, some of which may be completed at home. You would also attend an in-person visit that involves measuring your child’s naturally-occurring brain activity with EEG as well as cognitive assessments. We would schedule your visit around your schedule to the best of our ability and we can schedule this visit in a location that is convenient for you (UW, home visits, etc.). Participants will receive an $80 gift card to thank them for their time.
Beliefs and Attitudes for Successful Implementation in Schools – Teachers (BASIS-T)
We have developed – and are currently conducting a large-scale randomized trial of – at teacher-focused version of the Beliefs and Attitudes for Successful Implementation in Schools (BASIS) implementation strategy. BASIS-T is being tested in context of Positive Greetings at the Door (PGD) implementation. Details are available in a study protocol published in Implementation Science.
Strengthening financial literacy for people living with serious mental illness
Improved financial literacy among people living with serious mental illness (SMI) is associated with a higher quality of life, fewer hospitalizations, and better treatment adherence. Yet people living with SMI frequently express how their lack of financial knowledge has negative personal consequences and that they don’t know where to turn for assistance. This project will gather qualitative and quantitative data from people admitted to the Center for Behavioral Health and Learning, a psychiatric hospital, to understand the need and desire for a financial skills intervention and its role in discharge planning. The assessment will also seek input from family members/caregivers, representative payees/fiduciaries and experts in the community. Ultimately, we hope to create a replicable, standardized intervention that can be evaluated and implemented in inpatient settings and modified as necessary for outpatient settings.
Using Large Language Models to identify video platform interactions indicating suicide risk
This project will identify interaction patterns with online video platforms that are indicative of suicide risk, focusing on YouTube and TikTok. Leveraging archival data including over 5 million interaction events collected from participants in previous research, we will use combinations of neural language models to identify suicide-related “like”, “search” and “watch” events. We will then assess the temporal relationships between suicide-related interaction events and suicidal ideation, behavior and mental health challenges reported by these participants. Building on these analyses, we will proceed to model patterns of interaction, differentiating between user-initiated (e.g. search) and algorithm-prompted (e.g. recommended content without a preceding search) content to characterize the ways in which intentional and algorithmically-driven behavior drive exposure to suicide-related content. In addition, we will develop a prototype of a privacy-preserving risk monitoring tool, which will detect interactions with concerning content and leverage light-touch intervention strategies to mitigate its impact.
School-Based Paraeducator Education for Engagement at Recess (SPEER)
The purpose of this study is to compare two implementation strategies for a social engagement intervention that supports autistic children and their non-autistic peers during recess. Remaking Recess has been shown to improve peer engagement for autistic students when implemented by paraeducators during recess. However, without supports, paraeducators face barriers to implementing the intervention well. This study compares paraeducators’ use of Remaking Recess when they receive coaching alone and when they receive coaching along with consultation from school-based teams.
Testing the efficacy of the Helping Educational Leaders Mobilize Evidence (HELM) implementation strategy
This study will examine the efficacy of the Helping Educational Leaders Mobilize Evidence (HELM) implementation strategy for promoting building-level implementation leadership, implementation climate, and high-fidelity delivery of evidence-based practices. This study tests whether HELM improves outcomes when used in conjunction with Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS), an evidence-based practice. The researchers will compare the effects of PBIS implemented with usual supports and PBIS implemented with HELM. They will also explore what for whom, under what conditions, how equitably, and through which processes HELM works to improve student academic outcomes, as well as its cost-effectiveness.
