Youth Substance Use and Risky Behavior Lab

Congrats to the very first PhD to graduate from the YSURB lab! Dr. Paula Floyd did her dissertation on PAI-A and UPPS predictors of infractions in a juvenile detention center and completed her predoc internship at Travis County Juvenile Probation in Austin. She’s now working there as a postdoc!

Dr. Charles and Criminal Justice faculty member Dr. Gulledge will be teaching a new class on research/practice in the juvenile justice system next year! We’ll also be supervising new student research projects evaluating a mentoring program for detained youth!

New Interdisciplinary Projects Planned for Community-Engaged Research Initiative | The University of Southern Mississippi The Center for Community Engagement and the School of Interdisciplinary Studies and Professional Development at The University of Southern Mississippi (USM) have announced two interdisciplinary research and creative activity projects which will feature in the inaugural 2022-24 Interdisciplinary Inve...

Congrats to 2nd year student Emily Cordova on her successful master’s thesis proposal! 👩‍🎓🎉

Congratulations to 4th year student Lauren Burns on her successful dissertation proposal! Lauren will be investigating substance use patterns and ways that they differ across groups of sexual and gender minority identified individuals. She will also look at how stress and discrimination contribute to their use and barriers to treatment.

Our first Youth Substance Use and Risky Behavior Lab “Paper in a Day”, something we learned about from Academic Twitter. We mostly cranked out a manuscript on a psychometric study of a new substance use motives measure. Thanks to lead author and soon-to-be 3rd year student Stephanie Strong for organizing!

Congrats to rising 5th year student Peggy Bullerjahn on her successful dissertation proposal today! 🎉👩‍🎓

Peggy's study focuses on how childhood environment and emotional functioning relate to substance use patterns in young adults. We're excited to get this study going in the lab!

Some of the lab met for dinner last night to wish our soon-to-be intern Paula Floyd well! Extremely weird lighting makes this look like a nightclub but it was a BBQ joint 🤣

Best of luck Paula! Have a safe trip to Austin and we’ll miss you in the Burg!

The YSURB lab is very excited to announce that we have been awarded a grant through the HRSA Behavioral Health Workforce and Education Training (BHWET) Program for Professionals! 🎉🎉

https://www.hrsa.gov/about/news/press-releases/arp-behavioral-health-workforce-education-training-underserved-communities

The BHWET program aims to improve access to behavioral healthcare in underseved communities across the US by funding graduate trainees to work as providers.

Our project, ACCESS: Advancing Community Connections to Enhance Services and Success, aims to expand behavioral health graduate student training opportunities involving underserved communities, such as those from racial/ethnic minority, rural, and low-income backgrounds, and to increase access to behavioral healthcare in our area. The team will study the implementation and effectiveness of evidence-based behavioral health services at 3 partner sites: Hattiesburg Clinic Pediatrics, Kids Hub Child Advocacy Center, and Forrest County Juvenile Detention Center. These are nontraditional settings for behavioral healthcare but locations where many underserved families can be reached and high-quality behavioral health services can have a significant impact. ACCESS has been funded by the U.S. Health Resources & Services Administration as a 4-year project for $699,788.00 in total. It is a collaboration between the Clinical Psychology PhD program, the USM Behavioral Health Clinic and the MSW program with PI Dr. Nora Charles (Clinical Psychology) and Co-Is Dr. Kristy McRaney (Behavioral Health Clinic Director) and Dr. Michelle Brazeal (Social Work) leading the project. ACCESS will fund 3 Clinical Psychology graduate students and 3 MSW students in each of the 4 years to work on-site at the partner locations.

HRSA awards nearly $66 million to bolster the nation’s behavioral health workforce for underserved communities U.S. Department of Health & Human Services Health Resources and Services Administration HRSA NEWS ROOM http://newsroom.hrsa.gov FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE June 9 CONTACT: HRSA PRESS OFFICE 301-443-3376

Dr. Charles was interviewed by local TV station WDAM about our research on the psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic for a piece during Mental Health Awareness Month! This project was a collaboration with Serafine Behavioral Pharmacology Lab with graduate student authors Stephanie Strong, Peggy Bullerjahn, and Lauren Burns. The published research paper can be accessed here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33482422/

USM study shows increase in mental health issues in students since pandemic began A study conducted among University of Southern Mississippi students showed an increase in mental health issues for students in 2020 compared to 2019.

We have a new paper (with Washington State/Southern Miss Youth Personality and Behavior Lab and Joye Anestis's lab) out on Personality Assessment Inventory-Adolescent predictors of response to a Dialectical Behavior Therapy for Adolescents-informed intervention for boys in a residential program. The authors and non-author group leaders had a great experience leading this intervention and are excited to share our results! https://rdcu.be/cjhl6

Congratulations to our lab members who are graduating this week! 👩‍🎓👨‍🎓🎉🎉

Graduate:
Lydia Sigurdson, MA in Psychology
Lauren Burns, MA in Psychology

Undergraduate:
Elizabeth Payne, BA in Psychology with Honors
Kadin Love, BA in Psychology
Jasmine Alvarado, BS in Psychology