Quick and effective access to mental health resources for St. Joseph County youth will expand significantly through a dynamic new partnership between psychologists at Northwestern University and the University of Notre Dame, supported by a newly awarded grant from the Valinhos Foundation.
The new three-year program, called the St. Joseph County Universal Wellness Project, aims to help bridge the gap in local mental health care for young people through in-person or digital single-session interventions — evidence-based approaches that can make a meaningful difference in mental health in a short amount of time.
The program will train 75 local providers to offer a one-time, solution-focused meeting with youth in need of mental health support. It will also offer local youth access to an online platform that provides a self-directed experience, using videos, tips and suggestions on available resources to help create a plan for improving their mental health.
“We are taking evidence-based methods developed through rigorous research and creating a way to scale them so they reach the people who need them most,” said , a Notre Dame professor of psychology and director of the , which will lead the project locally. “In addition to giving local youth free and anonymous mental health support tools, we believe this project will strengthen our community and serve as a national model for scaling county-level interventions.”
Developed by — a Northwestern associate professor of medical social sciences and founding director of the — and her team, the digital and provider-delivered single-session intervention programs have shown through dozens of clinical trials to reduce youth depression and anxiety symptoms for up to 12 months and increase motivation to seek further care. Collectively, these brief, barrier-free programs have helped more than 100,000 individuals and families improve their coping abilities and have proven effective across a diverse range of youth populations.
Schleider’s free digital intervention platform, , will be adapted for St. Joseph County youth by the Veldman Clinic and community partners, and its clinical and implementation effectiveness will be evaluated over the course of a year.
“This is a dream project for me, and precisely the sort of work I’m in this field to push forward,” Schleider said. “Single-session interventions, because of how scalable they are, really fill these untouched gaps in the mental health care system that high-intensity treatments like weekly psychotherapy delivered by professionals were never built to address.”
The Veldman Clinic, opening this spring at 501 N. Hill St. in South Bend’s East Bank neighborhood, will significantly enhance the research of faculty in Notre Dame’s and offer immersive training for clinical psychology graduate students, who will be empowered to share pioneering evidence-based mental health practices with communities across the country. It is a key component of the in the University’s , which emphasizes a commitment to addressing the nationwide mental health crisis.
Schleider’s approach has already been effectively deployed through a program in Montana, and serves as an example of the effectiveness of implementation science — taking evidence-based methods developed through research and developing means of scaling them to maximize their reach and effectiveness.
“The St. Joseph County Universal Wellness Project is an incredible opportunity for the Veldman Clinic to implement evidence-based interventions and build strong community partnerships as it opens its doors,” said , the I.A. O’Shaughnessy Dean of the . “Dissemination work of this caliber will be a core component of the clinic’s efforts to enhance mental health care throughout the region and nationwide, and I can’t wait to see the transformative impact this program has for youth in our area.”
To tailor the program to the needs of the community and ensure its tools are accessible to and meet the needs of local populations, the Veldman Clinic will recruit four community advisory boards comprised of providers and leaders of local schools, community organizations, health care providers, parents and youth.
The program is actively seeking members for one-year terms on its community advisory boards. from individuals with lived, professional or community experience relevant to youth mental health — especially those connected to schools, pediatric/behavioral health, youth services and parent/caregiver networks.
Founded by Anita and Tom Veldman, the Valinhos Foundation is a private family foundation dedicated to improving the mental health and overall well-being landscape for youth, families and communities across Indiana.
Originally published by at on Dec. 22.
Contact: Tracy DeStazio, associate director of media relations, 574-631-9958 or tdestazi@nd.edu