Congratulations to Brittany Mosser, MSW, LICSW, Manager of the ALACRITY Center and CREATIV Lab, for receiving the 2021 Together We Will Award from UW President Ana Mari Cauce! The UW Together We Will Awards were created to celebrate outstanding staff contributions made during the extraordinary challenges of 2020, serving as a temporary replacement for the Distinguished Staff Award program. Nominated by Patricia Arean, PhD, and Patrick Raue, PhD, Brittany was selected for contributing to the successful implementation of funded studies involving community-dwelling older adults and rural populations, a challenging task as older adults are a vulnerable and underserved population and are at even higher risk to mental health conditions due to increased social isolation associated with the COVID pandemic.

Brittany was also instrumental in looking for funding mechanisms to support on-going research under COVID, as well as funding opportunities that were meaningful in addressing the needs of our communities. Her work resulted in four awards, one from our department and three from NIMH to study the impact of COVID19 on older adults, to create a novel social isolation prevention program called Stay Connected (which is being considered for adoption by King County Housing Authority), a study on how essential workers and those unemployed under COVID19 are coping emotionally, and which mobile health apps (if any) they are using to cope, and a national study to determine how hospitals are providing emotional resources for front line workers. Read more about Brittany’s work and all Together We Will awardees