An intervention in your pocket. BrotherlyACT is an app and web-based program that provides short life-skills videos, coping and mental health support, and practical safety planning tools for adolescents and young adults living in high-violence, under-resourced communities. The goal is to offer help before a crisis, not only after one. You can download the app through the App Store or Google Play. The current version requires an access code, so please email me and I will send one. 

FatherlyACT (in development) is a trauma-informed father–child dyadic program to strengthen relationships and reduce the intergenerational impacts of domestic violence on children and families. It focuses on supporting fathers in building safe, consistent, and emotionally responsive connections with their children. More details are forthcoming, but the work is actively underway. 

Technology and Adolescent Mental Health Internship (TAMI) Program

One of the initiatives I am most proud of is the TAMI Internship Program at Rush, a youth research training and internship program now in its fourth year. To date, we have partnered with more than 90 high school students from 12 Chicagoland schools. Students gain firsthand experience with community-based research, learn about STEAM careers, contribute to active research projects, and lead their own capstone work. At its core, the program is about creating pathways into research and ensuring that young people have a voice in shaping the questions, priorities, and solutions that affect their lives and communities.

The program has led to three youth co-authored publications - one, two, and three - all are open access (free) publications, and reflects a model of genuinely youth-engaged scholarship with young people as co-researchers and thought leaders.