New Mexico Mental Health Mentorship /Education Program

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We propose to continue and to strengthen a Mentorship and Educational Program (MEP) in Mental Health Services Research at the University of New Mexico (UNM). This program began to receive NIMH funding in August 1999. Focusing on minority mental health issues in primary care settings, especially disparities in mental health outcomes, the MEP provides an intensive, one-week annual training session, which introduces mental health services research to minority junior faculty members and graduate students. The MEP also enhances ongoing mentorship relationships with outstanding mental health researchers who serve as both advisers for the trainees' research and as role models in their career development. The overall aims of the MEP are to: 1) teach trainees basic research methods in this field, with an emphasis on how to write proposals and manage funded proposals; 2) introduce trainees to important recent findings of mental health services research, with special emphasis on research concerning the disparities in mental health outcomes that affect minority populations of the Southwest; 3) establish networks among trainees and research mentors; 4) help trainees with various aspects of career development; S) produce a minority-oriented mental health services research curriculum that is exportable to other educational institutions; and 6) initiate an ongoing sequence of training sessions in mental health services research on an annual basis. Targeted participants for the MEP include the minority junior faculty members who have participated in the NIMH-funded Minority Research Infrastructure Support Program (M-RISP) at UNM, other minority faculty members at UNM, and minority trainees from other institutions in the Southwest region. Each participating trainee is matched with a mentor at UNM and/or an external mentor with whom to work during the one-week MEP session and during the following year. External faculty members, who include outstanding minority mental health services researchers able to serve as role models, teach at the MEP annual session and then act as ongoing mentors. UNM-based faculty meet with local trainees on a weekly or bi-weekly basis. We expect that the Institute will continue to develop a focus for mental health services research in New Mexico and the Southwest region and to emerge as a nationally recognized model for training of minority faculty members in mental health research at the interface with primary care.