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Foundation Announces Recipients of Helping Hands Grants

The American Psychiatric Foundation has announced that five universities have been selected to receive Helping Hands Grants. Each school will get a $5,000 grant for a community mental health service project initiated and managed by medical students under the supervision of medical faculty. The awards are made possible through an unrestricted educational grant from Otsuka America Pharmaceuticals Inc.

The American Psychiatric Foundation is APA's philanthropic and educational arm. The mission of the foundation is to advance understanding that mental illnesses are real and can be effectively treated.

The Helping Hands Grant Program raises awareness of mental illness and the importance of early recognition and builds an interest among medical students in psychiatry and working in underserved communities.

• Baylor College of Medicine in Houston is being awarded a grant for the "Healthy Minds for Healthy Lives" student-driven initiative. This program, in collaboration with local homeless shelters and community mental health agencies, will raise awareness about the impact of socioeconomic status, homelessness, and trauma on mental well-being.
  
• Louisiana State University (LSU) Medical School in New Orleans is being awarded a grant to establish a program to assess the mental health status of patients at the LSU Health Sciences Center Student-Run Homeless Clinics. The program will include mental health screening tools, links to mental health services in the community, and patient education on the importance of maintaining mental health.
  
• Michigan State University College of Human Medicine-Upper Peninsula Campus in Marquette, Mich., is being awarded a grant for the "Upper Peninsula Maternal Emotional Support Program" to implement a network of Post-partum Depression (PPD) risk-assessment screening opportunities, professional educational curricula, and integrated community outreach efforts for all new mothers in the Upper Peninsula. This program will establish a consistent risk-assessment screening program for PPD at Marquette General Hospital, educate health professionals in the use of PPD screening tools, and provide outreach and community resources to at-risk mothers to reach 2,300 patients, physicians, and staff.
  
• SUNY Downstate Medical School in Brooklyn, N.Y., is being awarded a grant to create a screening program to help identify women with psychiatric disorders. Working in collaboration with psychiatrists from the Project for Psychiatric Outreach to the Homeless, students will screen women and provide educational awareness for comorbid conditions of homelessness, substance abuse, and other psychiatric disorders.
  
• Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center Amarillo in Amarillo, Tex., is being awarded a grant for the expansion of current services offered to rural areas that are underserved and under-represented in the Texas Panhandle. West Texas remains one of the most medically underserved areas in the country, and the program will expand the innovative activities of its Alzheimer's Academy to include awareness of depression, early recognition by screening, and referral to mental health providers. Education will include addressing the stigma due to the misconceptions that involve depression in older adults.
  

"We are pleased to be able to provide grants to these dedicated medical students," said Richard Harding, M.D., president of the American Psychiatric Foundation. "Through the generous charitable gift from Otsuka America Pharmaceuticals Inc. and the initiative of these students, communities are improving the quality of mental health services for the under served."

More information about the foundation is posted at <www.psychfoundation.org>.

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