APA Foundation Announces Recipients of Helping Hands Grants

The APA Foundation (APAF) has awarded 2019 Helping Hands grants to six medical schools. Each school will receive a grant of up to $5,000 to support community mental health service projects that were initiated or are managed by medical students under the supervision of medical faculty. Award recipients will also have an opportunity to present their work at a poster session at an APA Annual Meeting.

APAF established the Helping Hands Grant Program to encourage medical students to participate in community mental health and substance use disorder activities, particularly those focused on underserved populations. The awards are made possible through a grant from Otsuka America Pharmaceuticals Inc.

• Southern Illinois University School of Medicine in Springfield has been awarded a grant for “Improv for Resilience and Reintegration,” which provides group classes in healthy expression through improvisational theater to adults and juveniles in the Sangamon County criminal justice system. With the support of a staff member trained in improvisational theater techniques, several medical students will teach class participants strategies such as self-expression and storytelling.

• University of California Davis School of Medicine has been awarded a grant for “Women Leading Healthy Change,” a partnership between medical students and a nonprofit organization, Community Against Sexual Harm. The project consists of a 10-week course in which medical students teach women’s health and mental health topics while empowering women from the community to share their experiences with mental illness.

• University of Mississippi School of Medicine in Jackson, Miss., has been awarded a grant for its “Rural Addiction Education Project.” This project involves educating local Christian pastors on current models of substance use disorder (SUD) diagnosis and treatment with an eye toward improving community understanding of SUDs and improving opportunities for early, evidence-based interventions.

• University of South Dakota Sanford School of Medicine in Sioux Falls has been awarded a grant for “Adolescent Substance Abuse Prevention Coalition,” a program developed in collaboration with Lifeways Rapid City, which offers addiction counseling in schools. Medical students will hold educational events for sixth-grade students in science class to teach the students about the effects of substance use on the brain.

• University of Virginia School of Medicine in Charlottesville has been awarded a grant for “Community Advocates at the UVA-Haven Clinic.” Medical students act as advocates for patients at The Haven Clinic, a low-barrier day shelter that offers free primary care and mental health services, with the aim of establishing long-term relationships between the clinic and the patients.

• Weill Cornell Medical College in New York has been awarded a grant in support of the Weill Cornell Medicine Wellness Qlinic, a student-run clinic that addresses mental health disparities in the LGBTQ population in New York City. The clinic will offer a coping skills group led by medical students who were trained by the director of the dialectical behavioral therapy program at New York Presbyterian Hospital–Weill Cornell Medical Center.

APAF Executive Director Daniel Gillison Jr. encourages medical students to work with their schools to apply for a 2020 Helping Hands Grant.

“If you have a program that could effect change, bring it to us,” Gillison said. “Don’t wait to graduate to have an impact on your community. Here is an opportunity to make a difference while you’re still in medical school.” ■