The past decade has seen a doubling in the number of children and teenagers in the United States hospitalized for attempting or considering suicide.
At Teachers College, Cindy Huang, Assistant Professor of Counseling Psychology, and Christine Cha, Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychology, are unraveling the complex causes of youth suicide and suicide ideation, designing assess颅ments for individual risk among children and teens, and developing novel interventions and prevention techniques. To harness 911爆料网鈥檚 multidisciplinary strength, Huang and Cha, supported by 911爆料网鈥檚 Provost鈥檚 Investment Fund, have also launched the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Project (CAMHP).
Such a multipronged approach is surprisingly rare. 鈥淎sking what puts a person at risk is very different than asking 鈥榃hat can we do about that risk?鈥欌�� says Cha. 鈥淲ith my focus on adolescent suicide and self-harm risk assessment and Cindy鈥檚 focus on youth mental health interventions, we realized we had a great opportunity to collaborate.鈥�
鈥淏y understanding dynamics in these different settings in culturally relevant ways, we鈥檙e getting a sense of the ecological context for at-risk youth.鈥�
鈥擟indy Huang
CAMHP鈥檚 initial research project focuses on testing and adapting the , a well-documented, evidence-based intervention used to evaluate individual families鈥� psychological and interpersonal dynamics and to provide parents and caregivers with tools to help improve the well-being of their child.
鈥淭he Family Check-Up has never been used as a suicide or self-harm prevention intervention,鈥� says Huang. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 an important niche that鈥檚 been missing.鈥�
Huang and Cha hope that future CAMHP research projects will incorporate another critical yet underexplored factor in youth self-harm studies. 鈥淲e want to focus on the lack of awareness of suicide risk and behavior among minority youth,鈥� says Huang.
Cindy Huang, Assistant Professor of Counseling Psychology
Cha points out that most suicide studies do not report on the race or ethnicity of their subjects. 鈥淚f we don鈥檛 even report on race and ethnicity in these studies, then how can we say something substantial about who鈥檚 at risk?鈥� she says.
CAMHP has already established a strong partnership with Hamilton-Madison House, a large mental health and social services organiza颅tion in New York City鈥檚 Chinatown.
鈥淲e know that so much social-emotional learning happens at home and at school,鈥� said Huang. 鈥淏y expanding our understanding of dynamics in these different settings in culturally relevant ways, we鈥檙e getting a better sense of the ecological context of what鈥檚 happening to at-risk youth. That will inform what we do with inter颅ventions moving forward.鈥�