American Psychological Foundation News

First Roy Scrivner research grants awarded

Kory Floyd, PhD, and Charlotte J. Patterson, PhD, will receive the first Roy Scrivner Research Grants, established in 1998 by the American Psychological Foundation (APF). Floyd, an assistant professor of communication at Cleveland State University, researches the communication of affection in a variety of personal relationships, including friendships, adult sibling relationships and adult-child bonds. He is a co-director of the Fatherhood Relations Project, a national research initiative that focuses on men's relationships with their children. His winning Scrivner proposal will examine affectionate communication between gay and bisexual fathers and their adult sons.

Patterson, a psychology professor at the University of Virginia, is associate editor of the Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, and she serves as the director of the Bay Area Families Study. Her winning proposal will assess psychosocial adjustment of adolescent offspring of lesbian mothers to describe normative levels of adjustment of the adolescents and to identify and explore some factors thought to be associated with individual differences in mental health among these adolescents.

APF created the grants after receiving more than $360,000 as a bequest from Scrivner, a counseling and clinical psychologist and former president of the Texas Psychological Association. The fund encourages promising research on lesbian and gay family psychology and family therapy. In 2001, research grants for both professionals (two for up to $4,000 each) and doctoral students (two for up to $1,000 each) will be available. The deadline is Nov. 1.

Know of an outstanding dissertation?

The APF and the Science Directorate invite nominations for the 2001 Todd E. Husted Memorial Award, given to the person whose dissertation demonstrates the most potential to contribute to the development and improvement of services for those with severe and persistent mental illness. The award is a $1,000 cash prize.

The Science Directorate will accept topics that foster the development of:

• A more comprehensive, humane and responsive system of mental health care.

• A protective and humane sequencing of interventions to prevent the deterioration, homelessness and premature deaths of those with serious mental illness.

• Effective methods of improving patient compliance with medication and treatment for those having impaired insight as a result of schizophrenia and bipolar affective disorder.

• Demonstrating practical methods of improved identification, diversion and treatment of persons with mental illness who, as a result of that illness, enter the criminal justice system.

• Methods to improve training and social attitudes of professionals in the criminal justice system (attorneys, public defenders, judges) regarding the role of serious mental illness in the behaviors of mentally ill offenders.

• Appropriate services and supports for the most treatment-resistant and severely mentally ill people.