In the United States there is a significant mental health workforce shortage, with an additional 250,000 mental health providers needed to sufficiently meet the demand for mental health care.

The gap between the current mental health workforce supply and demand is maintained by many factors including high rates of individual trauma exposure, overburdened service organizations and a scarcity of community supports (e.g. policy, resources, infrastructure).

My research program relies on the principles of implementation science to bridge this gap by systematically evaluating, training and coaching non-mental health professions to deliver evidence-based treatments.

I am leading a project to build capacity of youth development professionals at three organizations in Connecticut to deliver evidence-based mental health skills to high-needs youth. This award will maximize impact to support our conducting a comprehensive evaluation to refine and scale the training and coaching program.

This evaluation will support our long-term goal to foster healing communities through innovative implementation models that match complex challenges with cutting-edge research to increase uptake and sustainability of evidence-based treatments for high-needs populations.