Personal Statement
I am a clinical psychologist with research interests in the treatment of alcohol and substance use disorders and co-occurring mental health conditions.
My research focuses on understanding how to improve access to evidence-based treatments and understanding why and how patients benefit from treatment. I am particularly interested in research measurement-based care — i.e., the use of standardized measures to monitor treatment progress and inform clinical decision-making.
Broad areas of interest include:
- Alcohol and drug use disorder treatment, including the effectiveness of digital and behavioral interventions, mechanisms of behavioral change, and social and environmental determinants of change.
- Technology to support behavioral change, including patient- and clinician-facing tools that support clinical decision-making, treatment adherence, and treatment progress monitoring.
- Applied statistical analysis, including methods for analyzing longitudinal data, clinical trials data, multilevel data, missing data, psychometric analysis, and data visualization.
I am a Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and I work as the Deputy Associate Chief of Staff for Mental Health at the VA Puget Sound Health Care System. I am a licensed clinical psychologist. My research is focused on studying mental health technologies to support Veterans, Service Members, their families, and the health care staff that treat them. I research mobile applications, virtual reality, virtual standardized patients, and other innovative approaches to improve mental health education and services. I have conducted DoD and VA funded research and focus on applied interventions that may have promise to make a difference in the lives of those we serve. I am an Army Veteran and current behavioral health officer in the Washington State Army National Guard.
Personal Statement
I am a psychologist who carries out research, provides community education to a broad range of audiences, trains postgraduate students, works on public policy– and has served as a clinician with children and families for many years. My main interests are fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD), early childhood mental health, and interventions for children born prenatally exposed to alcohol and other drugs and their families. My research is currently based at the Seattle Children’s Research Institute, but I also work in collaboration with UW researchers– and scientists at the University of Rochester in New York and multiple other academic institutions. A main research focus has been the Families Moving Forward (FMF) Program, a family-focused FASD intervention, now being disseminated primarily in the USA and Canada. The FMF Program is also now being translated into a mobile health application, called FMF Connect, for even broader use. Through Seattle Children’s, I co-direct a pilot service focused on assessment and short-term consultation for youth with prenatal substance exposure (including alcohol), and their families. I also offer mental health services to a broad range of young children and develops research focused on early childhood mental health.
Over the years, beyond research and clinical work, I have been able to work toward change in national US public policy, collaborate with Indigenous communities and researchers in remote Northwestern Australia, and train dedicated young professionals in psychology and psychiatry. I am grateful for these remarkable career opportunities… and the chance to meet so many resilient and inspiring families.
Note that you can only reach me through my Seattle Children’s email, at: heather.carmichaelolson@seattlechildrens.org
Personal Statement
I am a clinical psychologist and mental health services researcher. My overarching research aim is to produce and promote use of research, evaluation, and continuous quality improvement that aids high-quality implementation of effective models of care in real world service settings, such as in schools, public mental health systems, and family-and youth-run organizations. My research can be summarized as falling into three categories: (1) Care coordination models for youth with the most complex behavioral health needs; (2) school mental health; and (3) public sector implementation of research-based practices. In each area, I co-direct national training and TA centers. For example the National Wraparound Implementation Center (www.nwic.org), provides support to dozens of states and localities internationally on Wraparound. The National Wraparound Initiative (www.pdx.edu) serves to mobilize our research and policy activities. Our Wraparound fidelity tools and data systems can be found at www.wrapinfo.org. With respect to school mental health, our interdisciplinary UW School Mental Health Assessment, Research, and Training (SMART) Center — www.smartcenter.uw.edu — currently has over a dozen federal grants as well as state, local, and foundation funding focused on how best to ensure that evidence for effective mental health intervention and prevention is translated into effective programming in schools. The SMART Center also hosts the school mental health supplement of the UW Department of Psychiatry’s SAMHSA-funded Northwest Mental Health Training and Technical Assistance Center (MHTTC). Check out our extraordinary array of resources at https://mhttcnetwork.org/centers/northwest-mhttc/northwest-mhttc-school-mental-health.
