Presenter: Daniela Marie Alcala-Vargas

Faculty Sponsor: Ellen Correa

School: UMass Amherst

Research Area: Psychology and Behavioral Sciences

Session: Poster Session 1, 10:30 AM - 11:15 AM, Auditorium, A43

ABSTRACT

This civic engagement project is undertaken in partnership with the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. MSPCC is an organization that works with Eliot Community and Human Services, which provides wraparound services and resources to children and families. As a therapeutic mentor with MSPCC, I have heard of how, after clients have closed out their therapeutic services, they may fall back into old habits and ways of thinking. This concern led to the idea of creating a personalized mental health journal. This journal would be made in collaboration with individual clients to create a resource that works best for them and the way they think. The objective is for the client to have a complete, long-lasting tool to use after services have ended.

The hope is that this journal will be a fun and interactive way for the client to practice and solidify the skills and concepts they have learned in therapy. Through consistent use of the journal, the client may have less chance of regressing back into past behaviors and a higher chance of creating sustainable positive habits and thinking processes. Although mental health issues continue to grow in the younger generation, there is still a lack of awareness of mental health psychoeducation. The journal aims to address the lack of resources that clients face when therapy has ended, and thereby serves to address an inequity in the mental health field.