Mentor Areas
clinical intervention research; youth and family-based suicide prevention; social care integration in health systems
Description:
For the last 15 years, Dr. Ross has worked with several tertiary and quaternary pediatric hospitals to develop, refine, adapt, and implement the Family-Based Crisis Intervention (FBCI), an evidence-based intervention designed to provide optimal clinical care for suicidal youth and their families at the time of crisis. Developed in response to the psychiatric boarding crisis, the goal of FBCI is to reduce the youth's suicidal thoughts/feelings/behaviors and to facilitate communication between the youth and their caregiver(s), thereby developing a joint crisis narrative of what caused the suicidality and how to prevent it going forward. FBCI is a modular intervention in which licensed mental health professionals provide both the youth and the caregiver(s) with psychoeducation, cognitive behavioral skills, therapeutic readiness education, and critical safety planning delivered within the context of the joint crisis narrative. FBCI has been evaluated through open, randomized clinical, and transportability trials in the Emergency Department (ED), patients who received FBCI were significantly less likely to be psychiatrically hospitalized, and families reported high levels of empowerment and satisfaction. Although originally developed for use in the ED, FBCI is currently being adapted for use in settings across the healthcare continuum including primary care and inpatient psychiatric units. Students from several disciplines (e.g., social work, family studies, etc.) have been involved in several aspects of this program of research, including training development and supervision (contingent upon clinical skillset), data collection and analysis, co-authoring manuscripts for publication, and other administrative aspects of research.
Preferred Qualifications
Strong writing/research skills, SPSS/excel, endnote, prior experience working on research projects/in labs
Project Website
Learn more about the researcher and/or the project here. https://sp2.upenn.edu/person/abigail-m-ross/
Details:
Preferred Student Year
Junior, Senior, Second-Year
Academic Term
Fall, Spring, Summer
I prefer to have students start during the above term(s).Volunteer
Yes
Yes indicates that faculty are open to volunteers.Paid
No
Yes indicates that faculty are open to paying students they engage in their research, regardless of their work-study eligibility.Work Study
Yes
Yes indicates that faculty are open to hiring work-study-eligible students.