My research broadly aims to better understand the etiology of depression and risk behaviors such as suicide and substance use across development, and translate findings to inform prevention and intervention strategies for youth and families. My work focuses on partnering with communities and primary care clinics to improve access to and use of effective mental health services.
My current projects include studies focused on adapting and evaluating suicide prevention intervention and implementation strategies for use with adolescents and their families in primary care and outpatient medical settings, including developing and adapting brief, just-in-time, and digital interventions to expand access to services.
In addition to research, I am also a clinical psychologist in the Mood and Anxiety Disorders Program and the Crisis Care Clinic at Seattle Children’s Hospital.
Areas of clinical practice:
SLU at Fred Hutch Cancer Center and UW Diabetes Institute
My passion and background are working with individuals with serious medical conditions, primarily cancer but also other chronic health conditions. I split my clinical time between FHCC and UW Diabetes Institute. I also passionate about conducting research about existential distress and post-traumatic growth in oncology.
Clinical Approach:
I practice an interpersonal approach to psychotherapy, rather than solely structured one. I enjoy building a collaborative relationship with my patients to identify goals to work on in therapy. I really want our time together to be worthwhile. There’s only so much time and energy someone with a major illness has. I am a big fan of the spoon theory and don’t want to be wasting their spoons. I love to use humor, metaphor and stories. I also find it important to provide space and opportunities to discuss heavier topics related to prognosis, morality, grief and legacy. I enjoy supporting patients with meaning making and trying to answer difficult questions such as “What’s the meaning of all this? How can we help patients live well with what life is remaining?”
Personal History:
I have a small, supportive family with my partner and our dog. Growing up, I was close with my grandparents. My grandfather who lived with Parkinson’s disease for most of my life. Parkinson’s has a lot of physical symptoms, but also mood symptoms. Additionally, he also lived with chronic melanoma and prostate cancer. His health had a large impact on his life, our family, and how I now view quality of life during treatment and at end of life. He always faced challenges and changes in his functioning with humor and creative to continue to engage in active he enjoyed like travel, golf and a fancy meal. Around the time I started graduate school for psychology, he passed away. His legacy influenced me work with people who were living with serious medical conditions or acquired new disability. I want to help patients live with it instead of against it.
Dr. Prater holds a doctorate in public health from the Ohio State University, with a focus in health services research, pragmatic intervention development and policy evaluation. Her work focuses on understanding the circumstances around firearm suicide among vulnerable populations and developing health systems interventions for suicide prevention through firearm safety. Using a public health lens, she works on tailoring interventions to meet the unique needs of vulnerable populations (e.g. dementia, terminal illness) at increased risk for suicidal thoughts and behaviors. She is currently funded by the National Institutes on Aging and the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention to produce clinical decision-making tools to help persons with early dementia, their care partners, and primary clinicians, to make safer plans for firearm storage.
Dr. Charles Engel (he/him) is Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington School of Medicine, Core VA HSR&D Investigator in the Seattle Center for Innovation, Codirector of the Center’s Advanced Fellowship on Learning Health Systems, and Adjunct Physician Policy Researcher at the RAND Corporation. Engel’s work focuses on trauma-informed health systems and strategies for improving the quality of primary care for chronic mental and physical health conditions. His research has covered traumatic injury and post-trauma syndromes ranging from blast injury, mild traumatic brain injury and Gulf War syndrome to PTSD and depression. Engel is experienced at mixed qualitative and quantitative methods and has led large pragmatic randomized trials, program evaluations, and implementation science studies. He has authored or coauthored nearly 200 scholarly papers, including in the New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, and the American Journal of Psychiatry. Funding for his work has come from the National Institutes of Health, Centers for Disease Control, Department of Veterans Affairs, Department of Defense and other organizations. Before joining UW Psychiatry and the AIMS Center in 2021, Dr. Engel was Senior Physician Policy Researcher at the RAND Corporation from 2013 to 2020 and Associate Chair (Research) at Uniformed Services University’s Department of Psychiatry from 2001-2013. Engel has served on the board of directors of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies, has testified twice before Congress, received a number of awards, and delivered invited lectures in over 10 countries. He received both his MD and MPH from the University of Washington.
I am a child and adolescent psychiatrist with experience in delivering evidence based care for youth with psychiatric disorders. My clinical work is primarily in the outpatient setting and I have experience with telehealth, community mental health, consultation to primary care and developing integrated care systems with pediatricians. I am a psychiatrist on the Partnership Access Line, which provides phone consultation regarding diagnosis and treatment to pediatricians and other primary care physicians throughout Washington, Wyoming and Alaska. I have worked as part of an integrated care team by providing consultation in person at Kent-Des Moines and Roosevelt clinics. I have expertise in the treatment of common childhood psychiatric disorders and I am particularly interested in treating anxiety and ADHD. I am also trained in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT) and incorporate this background in my work. I value working collaboratively with patients and their families to make a decision about treatment options based on the best evidence we have for safe and effective treatment.
Academically, I have enjoyed being part of the fellowship training program teaching about Integrated Care and currently co-chair the child and adolescent curriculum for the University of Washington Integrated Care Fellowship.
Robert Hilt, MD is a Professor in the UW Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and a psychiatrist at Seattle Children’s Hospital. He is the program director for the Partnership Access Line (PAL), a child mental health consultation service for primary care providers in Washington, Wyoming and Alaska. He is the Program Director for the Medicaid Medication Second Opinion Programs of Wyoming, Washington and Alaska, and Multidisciplinary Team (MDT) Psychiatric Consult Service in Wyoming for children in foster care. He has been involved in several collaborative care projects, in school support projects, and has helped to establish a statewide mental health referral service in Washington. Dr. Hilt’s primary interest is to increase professional collaboration between child psychiatrists and pediatric medical providers, and to increase access to high quality care.
Personal Statement
I am a board certified child and adolescent psychiatrist in the Pediatric Clinic at Harborview, Seattle Children’s Hospital, and Odessa Brown Children’s Clinic in the Division of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine.
In my clinical work, I strive to create active partnerships with my patients and their families to achieve the best possible outcomes regardless of their needs and circumstances. I am lucky to have great behavioral health and primary care partners across the different clinics I work in, who are invaluable collaborators in caring for our patients and families.
I am involved in the child and adolescent training program and supervises trainees at several outpatient clinics. My clinical and research interests include integrating mental healthcare into primary care settings, ADHD, disruptive behaviors, aggression, trauma-related disorders, and improving clinical supervision of child and adolescent psychiatry trainees.
Personal Statement
As a practicing psychiatrist and health services researcher, I seek to improve mental health services in medical settings, especially among underserved populations. I work with colleagues in a wide array of disciplines (medical, public health, engineering and others) to develop new ways to increase the reach of evidence-based mental health services using technology-enabled service models to leverage limited specialty mental health expertise. I have a strong interest in using consumer technologies to empower patients, improve communication with providers, and provide targeted treatment.
