The Community track focuses on prevention, consultation, program development, empowerment, and health promotion. In the community track, Drs. Brown, Greeson, Jason and McMahon will be considering applicants for Autumn 2022 admission.
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Dr. Megan Greeson is interested in the response of community systems (e.g., mental health, advocacy, medical, and legal systems) to gendered violence, with a particular emphasis on sexual assault. Her research focuses on understanding victim's decisions to seek help, the quality of the help they receive, and settings-level interventions to improve how community systems respond to survivors.
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Dr. Leonard Jason's (http://leonardjason.com/) primary research agenda focuses on addiction (i.e. efforts to reintegrate those with substance use disorders back into the community), chronic illnesses (i.e. basic epidemiology of those dealing with post-viral illnesses such as COVID-19 and myalgic encephalomyelitis), and violence prevention (effectiveness trials in Chicago public schools with Black ninth graders).
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Dr. Susan McMahon's research focuses on school-based intervention and evaluation, risk and protective factors, and teacher and student experiences with violence.
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Dr. Anne Saw’s (http://caaplab.wixsite.com/caap) research focuses on health and mental health disparities among underserved communities, in particular, Asian American immigrants.
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Dr. Molly Brown's (www.harclab.com) research focuses on services and systems promoting housing and recovery outcomes for individuals experiencing homelessness.
Program objectives are for students to acquire understanding and competence in psychological theory, research, and practice, with particular attention to community psychology, evidence-based treatments, dissemination, and program evaluation with individuals and families of diverse backgrounds. Our program's diversity focus is intended to promote students' understanding about the societal and systemic/ecological forces that have contributed to current manifestations of inequality for many diverse groups such as for poor, urban, and ethnically diverse populations and on how these conditions influence mental health, family/community processes, and access to mental health services.
The Clinical Program has four broad program goals:
- To educate students broadly and generally about psychology and instill a commitment to life-long learning
- To prepare graduates with knowledge and skills to engage in and shape research and scholarship
- To prepare graduates for diverse leadership career paths in the practice of clinical psychology and more in-depth preparation in child and/or community applications and policy
- To prepare graduates to work in the public sector, in an urban environment, with diverse ethnic and socio-economic populations, and with those who have been traditionally underserved by psychology