Both Dror Ben-Zeev, PhD, and Molly Adrian, PhD, recently received funding from the Once Upon a Time Foundation to support their research. The Once Upon a Time Foundation is based in Fort Worth, Texas, and supports a wide range of organizations that provide arts and humanities, community affairs, health and medicine, human services and education benefits to members of the community.

Dr. Ben-Zeev received funding for his research in the area of digital health in psychiatric treatment and evaluation. Specifically, his team is developing mobile tools to help address the significant public mental health needs in Ghana. Drawing upon his work with the mHealth for Mental Health Program, he wants to build mobile tools that leverage multi-media resources (video, audio) to combat stigma, introduce principles of humane care, and provide alternative strategies for psychosocial management of mental illness.

Dr. Adrian’s funding will further her research in using social media as a source of useful information for clinicians who treat adolescents with mental health conditions. As an example, she hopes to determine the extent to which adolescents’ information from social media can be used to identify individuals who are at risk for self-harm, and if the integration of this information in a clinical setting improves identification of high risk status for youth obtaining psychiatric services in an outpatient setting.