May 8-14, 2023

USF gets $8M in federal grants to boost mental health care for children

Tampa Bay Business Journal

"USF's College of Education and College of Behavioral and Community Sciences each received grants from the Department of Education, which combined total roughly $8 million."

USF to work with Tampa Bay students on addressing mental health challenges

Tampa Bay Now

"'It's really going to increase the number of service providers who are qualified and interested in working in school districts providing services to all the children that we know need services,' said Catia Cividini-Motta, Associate Director of the Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) program at USF."

USF lands $8M in grants to train mental health counselors, study student behavior

10 Tampa Bay

“'Setting up systems across the entire school district, that teachers, paraprofessionals, other people can use to identify children that might need more specialized services,' Catia Cividini-Motta with USF’s Department of Applied Behavioral Sciences said."

U.S. Department of Education awards USF researchers $8 million to enhance school-based mental health programs

USF News

"In the College of Behavioral and Community Sciences, several faculty members are working with the Hillsborough, Hernando and Manatee school districts to launch Project MABAS.”

Online predators can take control of your child's webcam, experts warn

The National Desk

"C. Jordan Howell, an assistant professor of criminology at the University of South Florida, and his colleague, Eden Kamar of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, conducted an experiment to gather..."

Online predators target children’s webcams, study finds

The Conversation

By Christian Jordan Howell, PhD

"Our current research examines the methods online predators use to compromise children’s webcams. To do this, we posed online as children to observe active online predators in action."

Cividini-Motta, C., MacNaul, H., Mandel, N.R., Rojas, A., Ahearn, W.H. (2023). Automatic Reinforcement. In: Matson, J.L. (eds) Handbook of Applied Behavior Analysis. Autism and Child Psychopathology Series. Springer, Cham. doi:10.1007/978-3-031-19964-6_5

Dobbs, D., Yauk, J., Vogel, C. E., Fanfan, D., Buck, H., Haley, W. E., & Meng, H. (2023). Feasibility of the Palliative Care Education in Assisted Living Intervention for Dementia Care Providers: A Cluster Randomized Trial. The Gerontologist. doi.org:10.1093/geront/gnad018

Monaco, W., Qureshi, R., Arif, A., Aggarwal, S., & Meng, H. (2023). Risk Factors for Vision Loss among Nursing Home Residents: A Cross-Sectional Analysis. Journal of the American Medical Directors Association, 24(1), 105–112.e1. doi:10.1016/j.jamda.2022.10.018

Rouse, H. J., Doyle, C., Hueluer, G., Torres, M. D., Peterson, L. J., Pan, X., Dobbs, D., Du, Y., Conner, K., & Meng, H. (2023). Music Engagement and Episodic Memory among Middle-Aged and Older Adults: A National Longitudinal Analysis. The Journals of Gerontology: Series B. doi:10.1093/geronb/gbad058

Rouse, H. J., Ismail, Z., Andel, R., Molinari, V. A., Schinka, J. A., & Small, B. J. (2023). Impact of mild behavioral impairment on longitudinal changes in cognition. The Journals of Gerontology: Series A. doi:10.1093/gerona/glad098 

Hongdao Meng, MD, MPH, PhD (SAS)

Group Music Intervention to Reduce Agitation in Memory Care: A Cluster-Randomized Trial

Sponsor: Florida Department of Health Ed and Ethel Moore Alzheimer’s Disease Research Program

3/1/2023-2/28/2026

Total Award Amount: $350,000

Alzheimer's Disease and Related Dementias (ADRD) impact over 42% of the nearly one million assisted living residents in the United States. Up to 90% of these residents will experience agitation and other neuropsychiatric symptoms (NPS) during the disease's progression. NPS can lead to poor quality of life, increased caregiver stress, and faster disease progression. The University of South Florida Group Music Intervention (USF-GMI) program was developed to address these pressing issues in memory care communities. This research study will test the efficacy of the refined intervention in reducing NPS, antipsychotic medication use, and hospitalizations, as well as lowering staff distress. The project is expected to benefit hundreds of residents with ADRD, improve their quality of care by providing access to a novel group music engagement program, training staff on using music intervention for NPS management. This innovative research project aligns with the 2020 National Dementia Care Research Summit's call to develop interventions targeting the social and emotional needs of persons with dementia, their care partners, and direct care workers. Interested readers can learn more about the promising feasibility study here.

Abigail Shockley, MPH (MHLP)

Opioid Training Webinar Modules (CORE) 

Sponsor: Flagler Cares 

3/1/2023-5/31/2023 

Amount: $15,000.00 

Flagler Cares partnered with the USF Criminal Justice, Mental Health, and Substance Abuse Technical Assistance Center (CJMHSA TAC) to develop a series of pre-recorded webinars for the Flagler County Coordinated Opioid Recovery Initiative (CORE). The primary goal of the project was to ensure that all CORE partners have baseline knowledge of key issues related to opioid use disorder service delivery. Under the direction of Shockley, the CJMHSA TAC engaged USF College of Behavioral and Community Sciences faculty and staff with expertise to develop the webinar presentations. The three webinars (deliverables for this project) include 1) Motivational Interviewing presented by Amanda Sharp, 2) Stigma and Opioid Use Disorders presented by Kristin Kosyluk, and 3) Trauma-Informed Care presented by Jessica Rice and Kathleen Moore. These webinars will be available for Flagler County to access as on-demand training modules as they onboard stakeholders involved with the CORE projects.

Call for Participants: Research Study Testing a Prototype Chatbot Disclosure Deliberator

The USF ACCESS Lab and the STigma Action Research Lab are conducting a study to test out an interactive, SMS-based chatbot program. Through testing the prototype chatbot, you will create a disclosure story and learn about the disclosure decision process. The research study includes interacting with the chatbot program over three sessions and providing feedback on the prototype. Compensation includes $30 for initial surveys and chatbot prototype testing, $20 for qualitative interviews, and $15 if participating in the chatbot booster and follow-up survey.

See if you are eligible here.