Mental Health Resources
In 2020, 20.5% of all rural Americans (nonmetropolitan) were reported having some degree of mental illness. Due to a range of reasons and stigmas, many go without seeking or finding any support.
While we believe theatre & creativity are powerful vehicles for change and evolution-- we are happy to be partnering with our colleagues from Indiana University to provide free mental health resources everywhere we go.
About
We seek to bring empirically-based mental health programming to our partners while gathering data on what works best in each community. To that end, we maintain relationships with leaders and educators in the communities we partner with and disseminate the results of our research back to the community and provide opportunities to sustain our programming. These connections allow us to conduct Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) and intervention research in diverse community and school settings in order to best understand social, cultural, and environmental influences on mental health.
Mental Health First Aid Training
Mental Health First Aid is a course that teaches you how to identify, understand and respond to signs of mental illnesses and substance use disorders. The training gives you the skills you need to reach out and provide initial help and support to someone who may be developing a mental health or substance use problem or experiencing a crisis.
Kenzie Whitener is a certified trainer of Mental Health First Aid and will offer free certifications to any adults in the community that would like to learn more about common mental health disorders in teens, suicide prevention, and what resources are already available to them locally.
Going 4 Goals Training Course
Using a Dialectical Behavior Therapy framework, the Going 4 Goals program teaches teens how to identify and manage their emotions, learn how to cope with distressing situations and trauma, learn about diversity, inclusion and bystander intervention.
Our goal is to initiate a train-the-trainer model for local school social workers and/or guidance counselors or health teachers to be trained to facilitate the Going 4 Goals program in their own settings for sustainability of the program. Participants can also expect to learn about trauma-informed care and addressing multi-faceted mental health issues in school settings.
Kenzie Whitener, Clinical Research Specialist
Kenzie Whitener the lab and project manager for a substance use prevention research lab at IUPUI with a focus on minority health, and school-based interventions. She hopes to engage in more Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) to work in tandem with rural communities to implement evidence-based and culturally-relevant adolescent mental health prevention and treatment programs for at-risk youth. If you would like to learn more about Kenzie’s research, or become a community partner, check out iupuiprismlab.com or follow IG @iupuiprismlab.
Tamika Zapolski, Principal Investigator
Tamika Zapolski (she/her), PhD is an Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology at Indiana University—Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI). Dr. Zapolski focuses her research on understanding risk/protective factors for marijuana use among African Americans. Specifically, she is examining the interactive effect of cultural variables (e.g., discrimination, racial socialization, racial identity) on physiological, individual level (e.g., personality, expectancies, perceptions of risk), interpersonal (e.g., parental/peer support, parent/peer substance use, drug use beliefs), and environmental (e.g., access to drugs, school support, neighborhood disorganization) factors to better understand marginalized youth and young adult
Amy Knopf, Principal Investigator
populations. Dr. Zapolski is also part of a core group of IU researchers aiming to incorporate community-based participatory research (CBPR) into their work. Dr. Zapolski developed the Going 4 Goals program and has served over 250 youth in Indianapolis to date, and is developing the train the trainer model for school staff alongside Kenzie.
Amy Knopf (she/her), PhD is an Assistant Professor in the Indiana University School of Nursing. Her research focuses on the ethical engagement and representation of marginalized communities and individuals in clinical research. Dr. Knopf has a strong interest in diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts at the university and in the communities she engages with. She has given lectures and presentations on inclusive classroom practices, and serves on the Diversity and Ethics Inclusion committee of a local school in Indianapolis, IN.
