"I have had the great pleasure of working with the Stress-Less Initiative© (SLI) team in the Center for Violence Prevention. I first connected with the team during my third year as a public health PhD student at Drexel University. I collaborated with the SLI team on a qualitative evaluation study of the implementation of SLI in outpatient and community mental health settings. This project was a key part of my dissertation research investigating methods for addressing disparities in mental health and service use.

I have learned so much from my experience on this project and from the incredible researchers who I had the opportunity to work with. I conducted qualitative interviews with mental health professionals and worked closely with the SLI team to analyze and interpret the data. The team members provided valuable perspectives and context on how SLI was implemented, and they guided me through the qualitative process of generating research questions, data collection, data analysis, and writing up findings for publication.

I also learned a great deal about strategies to effectively address the needs of mental health providers and their risk of developing secondary traumatic stress (STS) in order to support their personal and professional wellbeing, as well as their longevity in the mental health field. In particular, I learned about the risk factors and impacts of STS on provider health. As a mental health clinician myself, I was particularly appreciative of SLI’s focus on caring for caregivers – a key aspect of mental health equity and service provision that is understudied.

I am incredibly grateful to the SLI team for welcoming me and including me in their research. Not only did I gain valuable experience and skills through working with the team, but I also enjoyed collaborating with compassionate, dedicated, and hard-working researchers who have made addressing STS an integral part of their research mission. The team supported me throughout every step of the research process, even (and especially) when I felt like I didn’t know what I was doing. It has been an honor and a pleasure to work on this project, and I look forward to continuing to collaborate with the team in the future."