University of Redlands
Professional Bio:
Janee has a passion for preparing counseling students to become social justice advocates and empowering them to combat the many faces of mental health discrimination. Much of her research has focused on therapeutic engagement processes with diverse and often times underserved populations (i.e. Hispanic families, substance users, adolescents); demonstrating the importance of school mental health with an emphasis on strengthening service delivery models and identifying youth perceived barriers to seeking counseling services; and exploring how exposing new medical students to mental health literacy and anti-stigma and discrimination messaging may enhance self-care behaviors and patient care. Janee is a California licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor and Certified Drug and Alcohol Counselor currently active in her practice at Inland Psych Redlands Inc. with over 16 years of broad clinical experience.
Project Summary:
This project will explore the merits of three forms of technology in engaging local youth in educational support services. Specific goal include: 1) engaging MA counseling students enrolled in CMHC 616: Introduction to Social Justice and Advocacy in a community service learning advocacy project; 2) reinforcing the use of technology to educationally engage counseling students and adolescents respectively and 3) improving emotion management within the community through educating adolescents. In collaboration with University of Redlands community partners, assessment will be conducted around the experiences and impressions of counseling students to deliver the information and perceived receptiveness; around the experiences and impressions of the adolescents to engage with the content in meaningful ways and their family's observations and impressions of their adolescent during the process.
The purpose of this project is to assess the effectiveness of 3 forms of technology in engaging local adolescents in educational support services. Curriculum will be designed to improve mental health literacy and emotion management. Service delivery will be conducted in keeping with the American Counseling Association's (ACA) code of ethics and guidelines on telemental health, e-therapy, digital ethics, & social media. Hypotheses are as follows: 1) providing educational and support services using relevant forms of technology will be viewed positively by adolescent participants; 2) youth will engage more wellness conversations and activities; 3) Counseling students will learn about various forms of technology that could enhance their future clinical practice and 4) Counseling students will enhance their theoretical understanding of advocacy and gain knowledge of specific advocacy strategies while participating in this project with special attention on the challenges of engaging youth.
