Notes
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Contributors
Dr. John Armstrong, Jr. is a school psychologist and clinical postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Mental Health. His professional interests include psychoeducational assessment, academic and behavioral consultation/intervention, school-based mental health, gifted identification, and socially equitable policy reform. Dr. Armstrong earned his PhD in School Psychology and graduate certificate in Applied Behavior Analysis from Temple University. He completed his clinical internship at the Center for Mental Health as a member of the Penn Autism Clinic, the Early Childhood Program at Hall Mercer, and Philly AIMS (Autism Instructional Methods and Support). In his current role, Dr. Armstrong is working on the BRIDGE and TeamSTEPPS projects under Dr. Courtney Benjamin Wolk.
Brianna Baker (she/her/hers) is a fourth-year doctoral candidate in the Counseling Psychology Ph.D. program at Columbia University. Born and raised in North Carolina, she graduated from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with an undergraduate degree in Psychology and African American Community Health and Resilience. Her research interests broadly include sociopolitical determinants of mental health, positive Black family development, and ameliorating sociohistorical racial trauma through community-focused program development. She is a current Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy Research Scholar and an American Psychological Association Predoctoral Minority Fellow. She hopes to mesh her passions for communications, public health, and psychology to bring African American mental health to the forefront of America’s social, moral, and political agendas. Brianna is the co-founder of the Black in Mental Health Initiative and the Founder of Girls Reaching Optimal Wellness (G.R.O.W.), a school-based mental wellness program for young women of color in the Southern US. Known for her courage and outspokenness for Black mental health, Brianna’s commitment to mental health equity has been featured on Spectrum News, Refinery 29, WebMD, and other prominent media outlets.
Dr. Sara Becker, PhD is a licensed clinical psychologist and implementation scientist dedicated to bridging the gap between research and practice. Dr. Becker studies both patient-focused dissemination (e.g., direct-to-consumer marketing, technology-assisted interventions) and provider-focused implementation (e.g., multi-level implementation approaches, workforce development) strategies. The overarching objective of her work is to increase both the demand for and supply of effective treatments in community settings. To date, Dr. Becker has been PI/MPI or Scientific Lead of ten federally funded projects from NIH, PEPFAR, SAMHSA, and AHRQ, all of which have been dedicated to advancing the uptake of evidence-based practices in community and clinical service settings. In addition to leading her own research portfolio, Dr. Becker frequently enjoys serving as a mentor, co-investigator, or consultant on dissemination and implementation science projects. She also actively serves the field as a grant reviewer, journal editor, and member of several national conference planning committees.
Dr. Kathryn M. Burke is an Assistant Professor of Research in the Department of Teaching and Learning and Senior Research Associate at the Institute on Disabilities at Temple University. Dr. Burke serves as the Faculty Advisor for Leadership and Career Studies, an inclusive postsecondary education initiative for students with intellectual disability at Temple. She received her PhD from the University of Kansas in Special Education. Her research focuses on promoting self-determination across the lifespan for people with disabilities.
Y. Vivian Byeon, MA is a doctoral student in Clinical Psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). She received her BA in Psychology with a minor in Spanish from UCLA. She is interested in conducting implementation research to improve the adoption and sustainment of evidence-based practices (EBPs) in community mental health settings. She is specifically interested in examining organizational and system-level factors that support the mental health workforce and impact EBP implementation. In her spare time, Vivian enjoys traveling, trying new restaurants, and going to the beach with her dog, Chandler. Twitter: @vivianbyeon
Bruce F. Chorpita, PhD (he/him/his) is Professor of Psychology and Professor of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles. He received his PhD in psychology from the University at Albany, State University of New York and held a faculty position with the Department of Psychology at the University of Hawaii from 1997 to 2008. From 2001 to 2003, Dr. Chorpita served as the Clinical Director of the Hawaii Department of Health’s Child and Adolescent Mental Health Division, where he led a reform initiative that doubled the effect size and cost effectiveness of mental health outcomes for all youth served by the state system. He has published more than 300 scientific papers, many of which focus on strategies for improving efficiency and quality in children’s mental health systems, and he is the lead author of the MATCH-ADTC protocol, an evidence-based treatment that outperformed multiple other evidence-based treatments in two randomized effectiveness trials in three different states. His ongoing research is aimed at improving the effectiveness of mental health service systems for children through innovation in mental health treatment design, clinical decision-making, information-delivery models, and service system architecture. From 2021 to 2022, Dr. Chorpita served as a National Academy of Sciences Committee Member for Accelerating Behavioral Science Through Ontology Development and Use, which involved working to establish a commitment to a shared conceptualization and set of terms and relationships within behavioral science, to help set the stage for improved scientific discovery, evidence retrieval and application (e.g., through clinical knowledge appliances), and automated reasoning.
Judith A. Cohen, MD is a board-certified Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist, Medical Director of the Allegheny General Hospital Center for Traumatic Stress in Children and Adolescents, and Professor of Psychiatry at Drexel University College of Medicine in Pittsburgh, PA. With Tony Mannarino, PhD and Esther Deblinger, PhD, Dr. Cohen developed and tested Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT), an evidence-based treatment for traumatized children, and has received more than two dozen grants related to the assessment and treatment of child maltreatment and trauma. Dr. Cohen is past Co-Chair of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry’s Child Maltreatment and Violence Committee, past member of its journal editorial board, first author of its PTSD practice parameters, and a recipient of its Rieger Award for Scientific Achievement. She has served on the boards of directors of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies and the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children, and as co-chair of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network’s Child Sexual Abuse and Child Traumatic Grief Committees. She is a consultant to Sesame Workshop and the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors, and maintains an active practice focused on disseminating evidence-based treatment for traumatized children and adolescents.
Margaret Crane is a clinical psychology PhD candidate at Temple University. She was the recipient of a National Institute of Mental Health F31 grant for her dissertation. Her research examines strategies to disseminate evidence-based practices for youth mental health. Margaret is also a clinical psychology resident at New York Presbyterian-Weill Cornell Medicine. Twitter: @margaret_crane1
Jordan Davis, PhD is a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Anxiety and Mood Disorders Service at the NYU Langone Child Study Center. She graduated with her PhD in clinical psychology, under the mentorship of Dr. Philip C. Kendall at Temple University. Dr. Davis has received training in adult, adolescent, and child psychology in various settings, including inpatient, outpatient, and emergency services. She has published multiple book chapters and peer-reviewed publications and has additional manuscripts under review.
Guy Diamond, PhD is an Associate Professor in the Department of Counseling and Family Therapy in the College of Nursing and Health Professions at Drexel University and the director of the Center for Family Intervention Science (CFIS). He is a family intervention clinical trials researcher with a focus on family therapy for youth suicide. Since its inception, CFIS has been fully funded with up to 22 staff and has brought in over $30,000,000 of funding from NIMH, SAMSHA, CDC, CSAT, and several private foundations. CFIS is dedicated to the development, testing, and dissemination of family-based treatments for diverse samples of depressed and suicidal youth and their parents. In this capacity, he has overseen the design, implementation, and dissemination of over 15 clinical trial studies. Diamond’s primary work has been in the area of youth suicide prevention and treatment research. On the prevention side, he has created a program focused on training, screening, and triage to be implemented in non-behavioral health settings. On the treatment side, he is the primary developer of attachment-based family therapy, specially developed and tested for treating youth depression and suicide. Most of his research career has focused on working with low-income disadvantages youth and families.
Valerie Everett is a graduate student in the Clinical Psychology PhD program at Temple University. She graduated from the University of Connecticut in 2015 with a BA in Psychology and a minor in English. After graduation, Val worked as a research coordinator at Drexel University, as well as a lacrosse coach for Young Quakers Community Athletics (YQCA) through the Netter Center of Community Partnerships at the University of Pennsylvania. More recently, Val worked on an R01 at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) Violence Intervention Program, investigating the effectiveness of the Child Family Traumatic Stress Intervention (CFTSI) in reducing post-traumatic stress symptoms in violently injured youth. Val’s current research interests include the influence of trauma exposure on risk and resilience in low-income urban youth, as well as resilience-building through sports. In her spare time, Val enjoys being active, eating cheese fries, lugging her Canon around to take pictures of unsuspecting dogs, and binge-watching “Parks and Rec” with her cats.
Dr. LaToya Floyd is a child and adolescent psychiatrist who guides young people through vulnerable situations. Her knowledge and experience are enhanced by her natural ability to build trusting relationships, essential in paving the road to wellness. Dr. Floyd has a dynamic range of interests, including knitting and collecting vintage American pens. Her patients are fascinated by her collection and she has been known to use a fountain pen during treatment.
Pete Gladstone, PhD earned his doctorate in school psychology in 2020 and is a licensed psychologist in Colorado specializing in assessment and diagnostics. His research focuses on facilitating improved postsecondary goal attainment for all students, and especially those with intellectual and developmental disabilities. He aims to help clients understand the assessment and diagnostic process so that they can maximize the benefit of the results and recommendations.
Stevie N. Grassetti, PhD is a licensed clinical psychologist and Assistant Professor at West Chester University of Pennsylvania. She is also affiliated with the University of Delaware’s Center for Training, Evaluation, and Community Collaboration, where she completed a postdoctoral fellowship. Dr. Grassetti earned a PhD in the APA- and PCSAS-accredited clinical science program at the University of Delaware. She is invested in optimizing evidence-based mental health care to serve the needs of marginalized population and advancing diversity and inclusion in the field and studies psychological programs implemented in community settings and teaching, mentorship, training, and supervision in health-service psychology.
Johnson Ho is a doctoral student pursuing his PhD in School Psychology at Temple University. Johnson grew up in Florida and graduated from the University of North Florida with a BS in Child Psychology. During college, he completed an internship with Head Start, served as a research assistant in cognitive development labs, and completed a thesis project focused on affective neuroscience. Following college, Johnson worked in various educational roles for several years, which included working as an elementary school teacher, a psychosocial teacher, a pre-K teacher evaluator, and within educational nonprofits. His research interests include best practices in working with refugee students, the relationship between multilingualism and selective mutism, and addressing xenophobia in schools.
Emily Hunt is a doctoral student in Counseling Psychology at Teachers College, Columbia University. She earned her master’s in Counseling Psychology from Teacher’s College and her bachelor’s degree in Psychology and Theater from Wesleyan University. Her research interests focus on both physical and psychological barriers faced by Asian American individuals and families when seeking mental health services, racial identity development in multiracial individuals, and sexuality and its impact on emotional well-being. In her free time, she enjoys cooking, hiking, theater, walking her dog, and teaching fitness classes.
Zeeshan Huque graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 2018 with a BA in Honors Psychology and minors in Hispanic Studies and Psychoanalytic Studies. She currently works as a clinical research coordinator at the Lifespan Brain Institute (LiBI) of Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and University of Pennsylvania, under the direction of Dr. Raquel Gur and Dr. Monica Calkins. Her work includes assessing community youth for psychosis spectrum symptoms and recruiting individuals to participate in multimodal longitudinal studies of psychosis risk. She has also worked as the outreach coordinator for the Penn Psychosis Evaluation and Recovery Center (PERC). In her free time, Zeeshan pursues her own clinical and neuroimaging research on the impact of trauma exposure on youth at risk for psychosis. She is currently pursuing a PhD in Clinical Psychology at Temple University, conducting research on the influence of environmental adversities on the development of psychosis in adolescents and young adults, with implications for enhanced identification and intervention for youth at high risk for psychosis.
Samiha Islam, MAis a fourth-year Clinical Psychology PhD student at the University of Pennsylvania. She received her bachelor’s degree in Psychology and Family Science from the University of Maryland, College Park and her master’s degree in Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania. Samiha’s clinical experience includes diagnostic interviewing and neuropsychological testing through the Penn Psychology Assessment Clinic and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) Autism Integrated Care Clinic, as well as providing anxiety-focused treatment for children and adolescents through the Pediatric Anxiety Treatment Center at Hall Mercer (PATCH) program. At the University of Pennsylvania’s Risk and Resilience lab, Samiha’s research examines how familial and contextual stressors across generations impact adolescent mental health. In her free time, Samiha enjoys reading books, exploring Philly’s food scene, and spending time with her cat, Tuna.
Meghan Kane is a board-certified Behavior Analyst and has a master’s degree from Temple University’s applied behavior analysis program. Her professional interests are focused on providing high-quality early intervention services to children with autism. Meghan is Clinical Supervisor at Hall Mercer’s Early Childhood Program (ECP), where she also provides coaching to families for parent-mediated intervention. She also has experience with staff supervision and professional development for those working in the field of applied behavior analysis.
Lourah Kelly earned her doctorate in Clinical Psychology at Suffolk University. Lourah has assisted with a number of NIMH and NIDA grants, and particularly enjoyed assisting with several NIH-funded projects, including a longitudinal study testing an HIV, substance use, and suicide prevention program for adolescents, and adaptations to cognitive-behavioral therapy for depression in adolescents with concurrent weight problems, concurrent suicidality, and comorbid behavioral disorders. Her research interests include comorbidity among mood disorders and substance use, pathways of social-cognitive factors in suicide and non-suicidal self-injury, and the importance of family and peer relationships among adolescents and emerging adults. Twitter: @LourahKellyPhD, @DLourah
Amy Mack, MSW, LCSW is a clinical social worker in the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Her area of expertise involves the treatment of eating disorders across various levels of care.
Dr. Jocelyn Meza is an Assistant Professor In-Residence in the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences and a bilingual licensed clinical psychologist at UCLA. Currently she is the Associate Director of the Youth Stress and Mood (YSAM) Program and the Principal Investigator of the Health Equity and Access Research and Treatment (HEART) lab at UCLA. Her research interests include studying socio-ecological risk and protective factors for suicide and self-harming behaviors among Black and Latinx youth. She aims to integrate psychological, cognitive, and sociocultural influences to predict suicide and self-harm behaviors and, importantly, to identify therapeutic targets for culturally responsive interventions for ethnoracially minoritized youth. In addition, Dr. Meza is expanding her research to adapt evidence-based psychosocial interventions for ethnoracailly diverse youth, particularly Black and Latinx youth and systems–involved youth (i.e., dually involved youth in the child welfare and juvenile justice systems).
Bernie Newman, PhD is an Associate Professor in the Temple University School of Social Work, where she teaches theory, practice, and research courses. Her research has focused on intimate–partner violence, sexual abuse of children, and social work education regarding sexual orientation and gender identity. She engages in program evaluation in a variety of community settings and is a licensed clinician working with children, families, and adults in behavioral health and child welfare settings.
Julie K Ngyuen is a Clinical Community Psychology PhD Student at the University of South Carolina who is interested in in trauma, racism, intervention, and health equity. She has previous research experience working with Dr. Isha Metzger at the University of Georgia and with Dr. Shannon Dorsey at the University of Washington, exploring topics such as trauma-focused intervention for children and racial trauma.
Silvia Nishioka, PhDearned her doctoral degree in Counseling Psychology at Teachers College, Columbia University, where she also received her master’s degree in Clinical Psychology. As a psychologist in Brazil, she specialized in Health Psychology and worked as a psychologist in a pediatric hospital. As a clinician, she works with children and families to support their well-being and reduce psychopathology through culturally sensitive assessments and interventions. Silvia is also engaged in research that focuses on evaluation, implementation, and adaptation of prevention interventions for diverse youth and their families in community settings.
Victor Pereira-Sanchez, MD, PhD is a child, adolescent, and adult psychiatrist based in New York. He conducts research in local and international global mental health projects as a Fundación Alicia Koplowitz Fellow at the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, New York University Grossman School of Medicine. His past research focused on the neuroimaging of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, and he is a prominent emerging leader in international psychiatry and global mental health research. His research portfolio includes more than 50 peer-reviewed publications and more than 860 accumulated citations, and he is recognized as one of the most distinguished Spanish investigators in the fields of psychiatry and mental health (SEPSM). Twitter: @victorpsanchez
Mary Phan is a third-year student in the School Psychology PhD Program at Utah State University. She is interested in implementing mindfulness-based interventions with underserved youth in public schools as well as promoting social justice through policy changes. She received her BA in psychology at Temple University. Mary is also a Health Policy Research Scholar, supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and led by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Twitter: @marylyndphan
Dr. Stephon Proctor is a clinical child psychologist specializing in the evaluation and treatment of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), disruptive behavior disorders, and anxiety disorders. He has experience treating children through various interventions, including cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), parent management training (PMT), and exposure and response prevention (ERP). Dr. Proctor uses empirically supported interventions and works closely with children’s caregivers and teachers to improve children’s functioning at home and school. Dr. Proctor is board certified by the American Board of Professional Psychology with a specialization in Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology.
Dr. Barbara Robles-Ramamurthy is a physician, scholar, mental health equity expert, organizational consultant, and entrepreneur. She is a triple-board–certified Adult, Child and Adolescent, and Forensic Psychiatrist and the Founder and CEO of Saagara PLLC, a consulting firm assisting child- and family-serving organizations to center justice, equity, and healing in their services. She brings passion and expertise in medical education, advocacy, and leadership in child and family mental health, along with experience in providing and leading collaborative and integrative care, to youth and families in community clinical settings.
Dr. Jessica S. Reinhardt (she/her) is a nationally certified school psychologist and licensed psychologist. She is the Coordinator of the School Psychology Program at Temple University. Her overarching professional interests include mental health of children and adolescents, culturally responsive counseling in schools, trauma-conscious teaching and consultation, and assessment of neurodevelopmental disorders.
Natalie Rodriguez-Quintana, PhD, MPH, LP (she/her/ella) is the Senior Director of Clinical Science at TRAILS (Transforming Research into Action to Improve the Lives of Students). Natalie received a PhD in Clinical Psychology from Indiana University, Bloomington and completed her clinical internship at The University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston, TX. She also holds an MPH in Biostatistics from the University of Puerto Rico, Medical Sciences Campus and a BA in Psychology from the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras Campus. Natalie’s work is focused on improving equitable access and delivery of effective mental health services for youth through dissemination and implementation of science and practice. Twitter: @ Natalie_RQ
Simone Schriger, MA is a doctoral candidate in Clinical Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, where she received her master’s degree. Her work focuses on increasing access to evidence-based mental health treatments in resource-limited contexts. Simone’s master’s thesis focused on characterizing clinical supervision in community mental health settings. In graduate school, Simone was awarded an F31 NRSA Fellowship from the NIH.
Erica Smith, MSEd (she/her) is an award-winning sexuality educator and consultant with over 20 years of experience working with LGBTQ+ youth. She has provided comprehensive sex education and advocacy to young people in Philadelphia’s juvenile justice system and currently supports transgender adolescents and their families through The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Gender and Sexuality Development Clinic. Erica received her Master of Education from Widener University’s Center for Human Sexuality Studies. You can find her on Instagram at @ericasmith.sex.ed or at purityculturedropout.com
Sean E. Snyder, MSW, LCSW is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker whose work focuses on providing evidence-based treatments to systems-involved youth. His area of expertise centers on treatments for youth with emotional challenges after trauma exposure. He is nationally certified in Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and has received intensive training in Cognitive Behavioral Interventions for Trauma in Schools (CBITS), the Child and Family Traumatic Stress Intervention (CFTSI), and Prolonged Exposure (PE). His future work will investigate the intersection of trauma exposure and suicide risk for youth. He has taught courses on child emotional challenges at Temple University and Thomas Jefferson University and has lectured at the University of Pennsylvania.
Dese’Rae L. Stage, MSW is a writer and self-taught photographer with experience in music journalism. She has an academic background in psychology and suicidology and is trained in crisis intervention. She is a certified QPR trainer and has lived experience with chronic suicidal ideation, suicide attempts, and suicide loss, which she centers in her work. Dese’Rae ties threads together with Live Through This, a multimedia storytelling series that aims to reduce prejudice and discrimination against suicide attempt survivors. It reminds us that suicide is a human issue by elevating and amplifying survivors’ voices through raw, honest stories of survival, and pairing them with portraits—putting faces and names to statistics that have been the only representation of attempt survivors in the past. She has interviewed and photographed 188 attempt survivors in 36 US cities since 2010.
R. Marie Wenzel, MSW earned her BA in Sociology and her MSW from Temple University. Since that time, she has worked in child welfare, housing and homelessness, chronic illness/HIV prevention, and serious mental illness. Marie is passionate about social justice and creating a more equitable and healthy community. For the past six years, Marie has been the director of the PEACE program of Horizon House, the largest First Episode Psychosis program in Philadelphia. The PEACE program is designed to help people in the early stages of psychosis learn how to manage their symptoms and meet their life’s goals. PEACE provides multidisciplinary evidence-based services to adolescents with Medicaid and who have been experiencing psychosis for the first time. Marie and her team have mastered early intervention in psychosis. She is using this experience to help transform psychosis services to include long-term, specialized treatment for individuals in Philadelphia living with psychosis.
Brian Wiley is a doctoral student who graduated with his master’s degree in school and mental health counseling from the University of Pennsylvania in 2017. Since then, Brian has been practicing family-based therapy, utilizing Ecosystemic Structural Family Therapy, in southeastern Pennsylvania and southern Florida. His primary clients are children and adolescents who have been self-referred, or court mandated to therapy for Emotional/Behavioral disorders or truancy. Brian is researching the effects of trauma on an individual’s emotional and mental development, and how a caregiver’s trauma can impact a child or adolescent. Brian’s goal is to start a group home for children who have experienced trauma and provide therapeutic services that help them to process and heal from the pain they have experienced.
Courtney Benjamin Wolk, PhD is an Assistant Professor at the Penn Center for Mental Health in the Department of Psychiatry, Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. She is a licensed clinical psychologist and an implementation scientist. She received her BA in Psychology from The Ohio State University and completed both her MA and PhD in Clinical Psychology at Temple University, where she focused on the development and evaluation of cognitive-behavioral therapies (CBT) for children and adolescents. She completed an APA-accredited pre-doctoral internship in Clinical Psychology at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, DC and an NRSA postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania. The long-term goal of her research is to develop and evaluate strategies to promote the uptake of evidence-based care into routine practice, with the ultimate goal of improving the effectiveness of mental health services for children and adults in non-specialty mental health settings. Twitter: @CourtneyWolk
Stephanie H. Yu, MA is a doctoral student in Clinical Psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles. She received her BA in Psychology and Social Welfare from the University of California, Berkeley with minors in Asian American Studies and Education. She is passionate about mental health equity and community-based research aiming to reduce mental health disparities for racial/ethnic marginalized groups. Her research focuses on culturally responsive adaptation and implementation of evidence-based practices (EBPs) in public systems of care serving marginalized communities and the cultivation of community partnerships to foster EBP implementation and sustainment. She is also interested in how individual and systemic conditions, such as those stemming from racism and discrimination, can be addressed to improve well-being outcomes for racial/ethnic marginalized communities.
Arturo Zinny, LPC, MA is the Program Director of Healing Hurt People (HHP) at the Center for Nonviolence and Social Justice, Drexel University Dornsife School of Public Health. HHP is a hospital and community-based violence intervention program that provides trauma-focused therapy, peer support, and case management to people ages 8 to 35 impacted by violence. Before his current role, Mr. Zinny served as Project Director for the Philadelphia Alliance for Child Trauma Services (PACTS) at Community Behavioral Health (CBH), a SAMHSA/NCTSI Cat 3 grantee. He also served as Director of Behavioral Health Services at Congreso de Latinos Unidos in Philadelphia and as Adjunct Faculty at Chestnut Hill College School of Graduate Studies. Mr. Zinny is a former chair of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network’s (NCTSN) Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender and Questioning (LGBTQ) Youth Sub-Committee. He is an advanced doctoral student at Drexel’s Dornisfe School of Public Health, Community Health and Prevention concentration. His dissertation focuses on researching the impact of evidence-based practices on the mental health of violently injured marginalized youth.