Assistant Professor Gisela Jimenez-Colon, Ph.D., has received the first Diversity Early Career Faculty Development Award (Education and Clinical Focus) from the Brown Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior (DPHB). The award is designed to support a clinical project or training opportunity for early career faculty, particularly those from historically underrepresented backgrounds.

A bilingual clinical psychologist at the Mi Gente Program, a behavioral health clinic for Latinx and Hispanic youth with mood disorders and trauma, Jimenez-Colon plans to use the $25,000 award to obtain training in treating adult caregivers with trauma. She expects that treating parents’ trauma can reduce their stress and improve their interactions with their children.

“As I continue to work with kids that have trauma, I see how much the parents and adults need their own treatment,” Jimenez-Colon said. “This award will allow me to get that training to better serve the population I want to serve. As we know in Rhode Island, the Hispanic population is increasing, so we need to provide services that ensure they get the care that they actually need.” 

The Diversity Early Career Faculty Development Award (Education and Clinical Focus) was created by the Recruitment and Retention Working Group of the DPHB Anti-Racism Steering Committee to improve the climate and support of faculty from historically underrepresented groups.

Jimenez-Colon plans to use the award for an intensive workshop in prolonged exposure therapy for adults from the Center for the Treatment and Study of Anxiety at Penn State. She also plans to use a portion of the money to subsidize treatment for one to two adult clients through Mi Gente who do not have access to health insurance.

“Latinx families and youth are less likely to receive any form of mental health services for many reasons, including that around 16 percent don’t have health insurance because of their immigration status or documentation status,” Jimenez-Colon said. “That reduces the likelihood that they’ll engage in any type of services. And yet they have a whole history of different types of trauma – immigration trauma, gang trauma, discrimination, and also, language barriers.”

Jimenez-Colon is currently studying the way transgenerational trauma in Latinx and Hispanic families affects parenting, child suicidality, and access to mental health services through a pilot project funded by Advance RI-CTR. She anticipates that treating post-traumatic stress disorder in parents will ultimately lead to better youth mental health outcomes.