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Interdisciplinary Research and Practice Lab for Mental Health Promotion and Violence Prevention among Girls and Women in Global Settings
One of the key characteristics that social and health service professionals in the 21st century must possess is a keen ability to collaborate with other professionals from different fields and community stakeholders from diverse settings (McGrath, Bacso, Andrews, & Rice, 2019). In this context, interprofessional collaboration refers to “occasions when students from two or more professions in health and social care learn and act together during all or part of their professional training with the object of cultivating collaborative practice for providing patient-centered and family-centered care” (Interprofessional Education Collaborative, 2016). Guided by this vision, a newly created interprofessional lab harnesses the strengths and skills of inter-professional teams at USF School of Social Work and the USF College of Public Health Harrell Center to study international and domestic issues related to gender-based violence and women’s health.
| The lab emerged from the long-time involvement of Dr. Guitele Rahill and Dr. Manisha Joshi (School of Social Work) in working with girls and women impacted by domestic and non-partner sexual violence in Haiti. A recently discovered covert form of non-partner sexual violence against girls and women in Haiti's Cité Soleil slum that results in unplanned teen pregnancies, depression, anxiety, and trauma for teens experiencing such pregnancies, served as the current impetus for the lab. |  |
| Collaborators include Dr. Abraham Salinas, Associate Director of the Harrell Center for the Study of Family Violence, and Dr. Nicholas Thomas, Research Associate at the USF Harrell Center. The Harrell Center exists because family violence impacts all of us (women, men, children and adolescents, and the elderly). To address multiple forms of interpersonal violence, we must recognize the syndemic of mental health, substance use disorders, and violence, which perpetuate and reinforce the structural violence against girls and women worldwide. Thus, it is necessary to develop interprofessional collaborations to integrate the best available evidence with community responses to family violence. In this context, the Harrell Center serves as an intermediary between research and practice, and have joined the Interprofessional Research and Practice Lab. The initiative will be presented in the next quarterly Harrell Center Board Meeting. |  |
The inaugural meeting was held on November 13, 2019. So far, in collaboration with OREZON Cité Soleil, the group has successfully obtained permission from the World Health Organization to translate the ACE-IQ (Adverse Childhood Events Questionnaire) for administration in Cité Soleil, Haiti. The first back-translations of the Kreyòl version was achieved in December 2019, with the help of USF BSW students Lisa Renard and Taina Laloi. Concomitantly, several USF students have expressed interest and have begun working on manuscript development related to gender-based violence and trauma in global settings. These include: Lucy Grippo and Amanda Grey who are working on Syndemic Factors associated with HIV risk for transgendered persons in Haiti.
Recognizing that access to mental health and violence prevention against girls and women are also a domestic issue, especially for immigrants, the lab is collaborating with local Imam Tarik who is working with MSW student Mrs. Zainab Badri to coordinate a community town hall meeting in their Tarpon Spring Mosque on Prevention of Family Violence in the Muslim Family (March 2020). The Lab is currently listed as in a training grant application (submitted by the USF Center of Excellence in Maternal and Child Health to HRSA/MCHB), as it is one of the recommended interprofessional research experiences that students of College of Public Health can apply to as part of the their culminating experiences (Applied Practice Experience -Interprofessional Experience). The latter component would provide opportunities for students in social work and public health and social work to take part in at least two of several inter-professional education and training sessions as part of their professional development. The ultimate objective would be to cultivate " collaborative practice for providing patient-centered and family-centered care”, ultimately maximizing positive outcomes for students' respective clients.
Our Interprofessional Research and Practice Lab will incorporate the Interprofessional Collaborative Practice (ICP) Competencies to assess our effectiveness in developing interprofessional skills among our students and faculty. The ICP is a specialized set of four competencies particularly designed for Interprofessional Education and Practice, and has been recommended by the Interprofessional Education Collaborative (IPEC) (Interprofessional Education Collaborative, 2016) and the World Health Organization (World Health Organization, 2007). Those competencies are consonant with social work values and with the Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards of the Council on Social Work Education and include:
(a) Values/Ethics for Interprofessional Practice (Competency 1): Work with individuals of other professions to maintain a climate of mutual respect and shared values;
(b) Interprofessional Roles/Responsibilities (Competency 2): Use the knowledge of one’s own role and those of other professions to appropriately assess and address the health care needs of clients and to promote and advance the health of populations;
(c) Interprofessional Communication (Competency 3): Communicate with clients/patients, families, communities, and professionals in health and other fields in a responsive and responsible manner that supports a team approach to the promotion and maintenance of health and the prevention and treatment of disease;
(d) Teams and Teamwork (Competency 4): Apply relationship-building values and the principles of team dynamics to perform effectively in different team roles to plan, deliver, and evaluate patient- and family-centered care and population health programs and policies that are safe, timely, efficient, effective, and equitable.
These competencies will be used to develop and refine interprofessional activities related to research in gender-based violence and mental health, as well as to integrate self-assessments instruments (pre- and post-tests). Particularly, we will assess the students’ reactions to interprofessional research activities, perceived knowledge and skills acquisition, and research products (publications, posters, abstracts, and other dissemination) for collective impact (shared findings and input from stakeholders from organizations or communities that would benefit mostly from the research).
References
Interprofessional Education Collaborative. (2016). Core competencies for interprofessional collaborative practice: 2016 update. Retrieved from Washington, DC: https://hsc.unm.edu/ipe/resources/index.html
McGrath, E. R., Bacso, D. R., Andrews, J. G., & Rice, S. A. (2019). Intentional interprofessional leadership in maternal and child health. Leadersh Health Serv (Bradf Engl), 32(2), 212-225. doi:10.1108/lhs-04-2018-0026
World Health Organization. (2007). World Health Organization Study Group on Interprofessional Education and Collaborative Practice. Retrieved from https://www.who.int/hrh/resources/framework_action/en/