Emerging Projects

Community-generated Postvention

Art holds the power to transform pain into understanding, inspiring healing where words fall short in the aftermath of suicide and mental health struggles.

Suicide loss is a major impediment to adolescent health and educational progress, yet school-focused postvention programming (i.e., support after a suicide death) is nonexistent, limited to guidelines based on exceedingly few studies of largely White youth. Building on our work with Youth Creating Change, in our next phase, we hope to continue to understand how art can be leveraged for learning to address adolescent suicide.

Our project will utilize a unique mix of qualitative interviews, ethnodrama for developing verbatim documentary theater, theatrical dissemination for community discussion, and ongoing community review to aim to. The ethnodrama approach is unique in a) amplifying the nuance and authenticity of youth voices, b) building guardrails for psychological safety for youth suicide loss participants, while c) creating conditions for empathy with youths’ experience by ethnoactors and audience members. This project convenes a trailblazing research-practice-partnership between NYU ARCADIA’s Dr. Pamela Morris-Perez, NYU Verbatim Performance Lab’s Joe Salvatore, and Youth Creating Change’s Jana Sczersputowski and Stan Collins to develop the first-ever school-based, community-generated, postvention healing program.

Team

  • Pamela Aileen Morris-Perez, Ph.D.

    FOUNDER, ARCADIA Center for Suicide Prevention

    PROFESSOR, Department of Applied Psychology, NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development

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  • Joe Salvatore, M.F.A.

    CLINICAL PROFESSOR

    New York University

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ARCADIA is stepping into early childhood development through

SMART Beginnings

In its initial phases, the SMART Beginnings project aimed to enhance school readiness in low-income families by promoting positive parenting practices and reducing psychosocial stressors starting shortly after a child's birth. It integrated two evidence-based interventions: the universal prevention strategy PlayReadVIP, which involves videotaping parent-child interactions and coaching parents, and the targeted home-visiting program,Family Check-up (FCU), for families facing additional psychosocial stressors. Conducted in pediatric primary care settings in New York City and Pittsburgh, the project tested the combined model through a randomized control trial, using surveys and observational data to assess its effectiveness. The study sought to determine if this integrated approach can significantly improve early school readiness outcomes, including social-emotional skills and self-regulation.


In its next phase, we will build on Smart Beginnings B’s promising impacts on early relational health and subsequent child social and academic skills through school entry. We plan to  explore additional potential effects effects on peer relations as well as the prevention of internalizing problem behavior and suicide risk during the transition to adolescence.

Team

  • Pamela Aileen Morris-Perez, Ph.D.

    FOUNDER, ARCADIA Center for Suicide Prevention

    PROFESSOR, Department of Applied Psychology, NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development

    READ BIO

  • Ashleigh Aviles, Ph.D.

    POSTDOCTORAL ASSOCIATE

    New York University

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Past Affiliates

  • Alan Mendelsohn, M.D.

    CO-PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR

    NYU Grossman School of Medicine

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  • Daniel Shaw, Ph.D.

    CO-PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR

    University of Pittsburgh

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  • Elizabeth B. Miller, PhD

    ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, Department of Population Health

    NYU Grossman School of Medicine

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Featured Publications

Shaw, D. S., Mendelsohn, A. L., Morris-Perez, P. A., & Weaver Krug, C. (2024). Integrating equifinality and multifinality into the prevention programs in early childhood: The conceptual case for use of tiered models. Development and Psychopathology, 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1017/S095457942400021X 

Canfield, C. F., Miller, E. B., Taraban, L. E., Rosas, J. M., Morris-Perez, P. A., Mendelsohn, A. L., & Shaw, D. (2023). Impacts of a tiered intervention on child internalizing and externalizing behavior in the context of maternal depression. Development & Psychopathology, 1-11. PMID: 38093598

Canfield, C. F., Miller, E. B., Zhang, Y., Shaw, D., Morris, P., Galan, C., & Mendelsohn, A. L. (2023). Tiered universal and targeted early childhood interventions: Enhancing attendance across families with varying needs. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 63(2), 362-369. PMCID: PMC9937541

Miller, E. B., Roby, E., Zhang, Y., Coskun, L., Rosas, J. M., Scott, M. A., Gutierrez, J., Shaw, D. S., Mendelsohn, A. L., & Morris-Perez, P. A. (2022). Promoting cognitive stimulation in parents across infancy and toddlerhood: A randomized cslinical trial. The Journal of Pediatrics. PMID: 36481243 PMCID Journal - In Process.

Miller, E. B., Whipps M. D. M., Bogen, D. L., Morris, P. A., Mendelsohn, A. L., Shaw, D. S., & Gross, R.S. (2022). Collateral benefits from a school readiness intervention on breastfeeding: A cross-domain impact evaluation. Maternal and Child Nutrition. PMCID: PMC9749611

Miller, E. B., Roby, E., Zhang, Y., Coskun, L., Rosas, J. M., Scott, M. A., Gutierrez, J., Shaw, D. S., Mendelsohn, A. L., & Morris-Perez, P. A. (2022). Promoting cognitive stimulation in parents across infancy and toddlerhood: A randomized clinical trial. The Journal of Pediatrics. PMID: 36481243 PMCID: PMC10121799