Science by the Slice: Task-Shifting Child Mental Health Care to Teachers Globally

Welcome to Science by the Slice! We’re excited to host this hybrid event. We’ll meet in in-person at 700 Park Offices Drive, (behind the Boxyard) to hear this month’s speaker while we enjoy pizza, but space is limited. You can also join live remotely via Sigma Xi’s Facebook page if you’re unable to make it in person. A zoom link will also be sent out to registered attendees.

Thursday, February 1 | 12:30PM

Task-Shifting Child Mental Health Care to Teachers Globally

with Dr. Christina M. Cruz

 

Abstract:

Task-shifting is a form of care in which non-professional (“lay”) individuals are trained to deliver health care under supervision. In mental health care, evidence is building for the efficacy of lay counselors to improve mental health symptoms and outcomes for individuals requiring indicated levels of care, especially relevant for lower-resources areas of the world where mental health care access to mental health care is particularly poor. In this talk, we will examine the evidence for task-shifting mental health care to lay counselors, largely studied for the adult population.

We will then explore early evidence that task-shifting mental health care may also be efficacious for adolescents and children, with a special focus on the growing evidence supporting an early signal of the efficacy of Tealeaf (Teachers Leading the Frontlines). Tealeaf is a task-shifting system of care in which teachers deliver indicated mental health care to their elementary school students. Within Tealeaf, teachers deliver a novel modality of therapy called “education as mental health therapy” (Ed-MH). Ed-MH therapeutic techniques are evidence-based in mental health but also aligned with teaching processes and classroom behavior management, turning moments of informal support they already provide students into doses of formal care.

Speaker Bio:

Christina M. Cruz, MD, EdM is an Assistant Professor and has expertise in medicine, business, and education. She completed her medical and education degrees at Harvard and her undergraduate business degree from the Wharton School at Penn, Summa cum Laude. She completed her General Psychiatry Residency and Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Fellowship at UNC. She founded and is the Principal Investigator of the Global Child Mental Health Collaborative @ UNC, a partnership of 6 organizations and experts in psychiatry, family medicine, social work, epidemiology, public health, anthropology, political science, and civil society engagement working together to improve child mental health outcomes through alternative systems of care.

While a practicing inpatient teaching child and adolescent psychiatrist, Dr. Cruz is predominantly a global mental health researcher. With collaborators in Colorado and Darjeeling, India, she created a care model, Tealeaf (Teachers Leading the Frontlines – Mental Health), where elementary school teachers are trained and coached to deliver a therapy they invented, “education as mental health therapy” (Ed-MH). Ed-MH distills CBT and DBT techniques for teachers to use in their already occurring interaction with students, turning moments of informal support they already have with students into doses of formal care. Transdiagnostic, Ed-MH allows teachers to care for any diagnosis. Versus a comparator in Darjeeling, the chances of children’s symptoms resolving were 56% after 1 year of care, greater than a first trial of an SSRI. Tealeaf is in the middle of a 4-year Type 1 hybrid effectiveness-implementation trial in Darjeeling. Based on its efficacy, Tealeaf is already scaling to the public schools of Manila, Philippines, soon reaching up to 20,000 children in need. Finally, through support from the UNC Suicide Prevention Institute, Tealeaf has been brought to the US, currently being adapted to the North Carolina middle school context as upstream suicide prevention.

TICKETS AVAILABLE HERE 

 

We hope you will join us at RTP for an hour of learning about science over a slice ( or several!) of pizza as we come together as a community in person and online.

For in-person attendees:

RSVP for attending in person is required and due Wednesday, Oct 4th at 12:30 pmSpace is limited. Pizza and drinks will be provided. Please don’t RSVP unless you plan to attend. There will be a waitlist if the RSVP capacity is reached.

For virtual attendees:

There is no deadline to RSVP for attending virtually.

Use the following URL to join Science by the Slice live on Facebook :

www.facebook.com/SigmaXi/

We will also provide a zoom link to view the event to registered attendees.

Please RSVP only once. RSVP to either join in person or virtually.

We hope you’ll join us remotely or in person for a great hour of science!

Science by the Slice is free and open to any interested members of the public, as well as science journalists and science communicators of all stripes. Feel free to extend this invitation to anyone who might want to attend.

Did you miss past Science by the Slice events? Check out our videos and podcasts of previous speakers: http://www.americanscientist.org/science/

Talks are co-organized with Science Communicators of North Carolina (SCONC). The RTP chapter of Sigma Xi is a co-organizer and co-sponsor, and encourages any interested scientists to get involved with the chapter and its upcoming events.

Please RSVP to this event using your own personal email (not a listserv email, etc.), which will be used solely to send reminders for the event. We will not keep your email unless you have requested to be added to the list (a button to be added is available on the registration page).PLEASE RSVP ONLY ONCE. Eventbrite will let you sign up multiple times even if you have already RSVP’d.

If you wish to be removed from this list, please email sconcmail-at-gmail-dot-org. This list is opt-in only, so you’re receiving this message because you asked to be on this list. If you are a Sigma Xi member and need to update your location or contact information with Sigma Xi, please email membership-at-sigmaxi-dot-org.

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Date

Feb 01 2024
Expired!

Time

12:30 pm - 1:30 pm

Location

Sigma Xi Headquarters, 700 Park Offices Drive, Research Triangle, NC 27709
Sigma Xi Headquarters, 700 Park Offices Drive, Research Triangle, NC 27709