News and Views

NIH Launches HEAL Initiative
In April 2018, the National Institutes of Health launched the HEAL (Helping to End Addiction Long term) Initiative, to speed scientific solutions to stem the national opioid public health crisis. This Initiative will build on extensive, well-established NIH research, including basic science of the complex neurological pathways involved in pain and addiction, implementation science to develop and test treatment models, and research to integrate behavioral interventions with Medication-Assisted Treatment for opioid use disorder. Successes from this research include the development of the nasal form of naloxone, the most commonly used nasal spray for reversing opioid overdose, the development of buprenorphine for the treatment of opioid use disorder, and evidence for the use of nondrug and mind/body techniques such as yoga, tai chi, acupuncture, and mindfulness meditation to help patients control and manage pain.

Bryan Stevenson to Give Keynote at Psychological Convention
Bryan Stevenson, J.D., one of the nation’s most inspirational speakers, will give the keynote address at the American Psychological Association Convention, Aug. 9, at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. Under Stevenson’s leadership, the Equal Justice Initiative has won major legal challenges, reversals, or release for more than a hundred wrongly condemned death row prisoners. Minority Fellowship E-News covered him in its March 2016 issue.

Social Work Assn. Welcomes Duy Nguyen as New MFP Director
Duy Nguyen, Ph.D., LCSW, MSW, became the new Minority Fellowship Program director for the Council on Social Work Education, effective June 11, 2018. Dr. Nguyen was himself a CSWE MFP doctoral Fellow during 2004–07. He is an adjunct faculty member at Columbia University, where he earned his doctorate in social work, and at New York University. He practiced social work at a community mental health center in Chicago, Ill., promoting access to behavioral health care for Asian immigrants and refugees. He is strongly committed to addressing minority mental health issues, particularly with Asian immigrant elders.

Dorothy Hillaire Is June’s Fellow of the Month
June ’s Minority Fellowship Program (MFP) Fellow of the Month is Dorothy Hillaire, a licensed social worker and currently president of the Ohio affiliate of the Association for Addiction Professionals (NAADAC). She is the performance improvement coordinator and trauma therapist at the Hitchcock Center for Women, where she works with addicted young adult women—many of whom have children and are escaping human trafficking. Ms. Hillaire was a NAADAC MFP Fellow during her master’s studies at the University of Akron School of Social Work, from January 2016 through May 2017, with a specialization in addiction counseling.

“The Minority Fellowship Program made a big difference in my life,” she said. “The mentorship and being able to connect with other professionals and experts were crucial to my development as a trauma-informed care provider.” Most of her clients—women between the ages of 18 and 28 with young children—are seeking help after experiencing major trauma in human trafficking networks. The Hitchcock Center is a residential treatment center that allows these women to bring their children with them. The center typically houses 58 to 75 women, many of whom are there for extended stays.

Former Fellow Branco Honored With Distinguished Teaching Award
Dr. Susan Branco, a 2014 National Board for Certified Counselors Minority Fellowship Program (MFP) Fellow, has been awarded this year’s Distinguished Teaching Award for Multicultural Teaching Excellence at the Chicago School of Professional Psychology. Her research examines how school and clinical mental health counselors work with persons adopted transracially and clinical supervision practices with counselors of color. For 14 years, she has maintained an independent clinical practice specializing in working with adults, children, and families connected to adoption and foster care and has professional experience working in community mental health, in prenatal care clinics, and with immigrant populations.

Currently, Dr. Branco is the interim chair for counselor education programs at the Chicago School of Professional Psychology, Washington D.C., campus. She also serves as chair of the MFP Advisory Council. She is a member of the American Counseling Association and a division member of both the Association for Multicultural Counseling and Development and the Association for Counselor Education and Supervision.

March Fellow of the Month: Dr. Farha Abassi
Dr. Farha Abbasi, an assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Michigan State University, continues to embellish her reputation as both a scholar and healer, by helping many Muslims and others overcome the challenges of mental and emotional distress. She credits her success to numerous mentors she found during her time in the American Psychiatric Association’s Minority Fellowship Program. One, Dr. Linda Peterson, chief medical officer at McLaren East Lansing in Michigan, helped steer her into psychiatry. “I was an internist in residency at McLaren,” Dr. Abbasi remembers, “when Dr. Peterson recognized my abilities as a psychiatrist.” Dr. Abbasi completed her education at Michigan State and later joined the faculty where she met Dr. Jed Magen, now chair of the Department of Psychiatry, to whom she also attributes in her success.

Another influential mentor was Dr. Annelle Primm, the director of the American Psychiatric Association’s Office of Minority and National Affairs and overseer of the MFP program. Dr. Abassi credits Dr. Primm with helping her find her career path. Other mentors include Dr. Francis Lu at the American Psychiatric Association Foundation and Dr. Ranna Parekh, the Director of ApA’s Division of Diversity and Health Equity and current overseer of the ApA’s Minority Fellowship Program. Dr. Abassi says the MFP “completely turned my life around.”

Dr. Abassi emigrated to the United States from Pakistan in 2000, with her husband and three children, just before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. It was as if she had arrived at the time she was needed most. She had begun her medical training in Pakistan, but it was here that she began her work in psychiatry. She found that many in the Muslim community, though suffering anxiety and trauma because of the backlash that resulted from the tragedy, were not accessing treatment—and understood how deeply religious people often were stigmatized by the notion of needing mental health services.