American Psychological Foundation
Fredman receives APF Husted dissertation award
The American Psychological Foundation (APF) awards the 2006 APF Todd E. Husted Memorial Dissertation Award to Steffany J. Fredman, a doctoral candidate in clinical psychology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. The $1,000 award recognizes outstanding dissertation research with the potential to improve mental health services for those with severe mental illnesses.
Fredman's research centers on mood and anxiety disorders in couples and families. She focuses on how families respond to one member's distress and effects of partner and family involvement in treatment on mental illness outcomes.
June Husted, PhD, founded the award. Her son Todd died as a result of severe mental illness.
Apply for mental illness dissertation award
Submit applications for the $2,000 2007 APF Todd E. Husted Award, which recognizes an individual whose dissertation shows potential to help improve mental health services for those with severe and persistent mental illness.
Topics should:
Foster the development of a more comprehensive, humane and responsive system of mental health care.
Develop a protective and humane sequencing of interventions to prevent deterioration, homelessness and premature deaths of those with serious mental illness.
Develop effective methods of improving patient compliance with medication and treatment for those with impaired insight resulting from schizophrenia and bipolar affective disorder.
Demonstrate practical methods of improved identification and treatment of people who enter the criminal justice system as a result of mental illness.
Foster methods to improve training and social attitudes of professionals in the criminal justice system regarding the role of serious mental illness in some offenders' behavior.
Increase access to and use of appropriate services and supports for the most treatment-resistant and severely mentally ill individuals.
The deadline is Sept. 15.
Moscovici receives APF Wundt-James award
The European Federation of Psychologists Association (EFPA) will present Sergei Moscovici, PhD, with the APF Wilhelm Wundt-William James Award for Exceptional Contributions to Trans-Atlantic Psychology at theIXth European Congress of Psychology in Prague, Czech Republic, in July. This award, made possible by a gift to APF from Raymond D. Fowler, PhD, former APA CEO, recognizes psychologists from Europe or North America who have made distinguished contributions to the science and profession of psychology and to the promotion of effective cooperation between European and North American psychologists. Moscovici is known for his research and theories on social representations, community influences, social consensus and collective decisions.
APF supports mothers and children of 9/11
APF recently awarded a two-year, $10,000 visionary grant to the 9/11 Mothers and Children Project. Started in April 2002, the project provides outreach, group counseling, referrals and mother-child bonding consultations for women pregnant and widowed on 9/11 and their children.
"Our psychoanalytically informed bonding consultation uses therapeutic viewing of the videotape with the parent and several of our therapists," says project director Beatrice Beebe, PhD. "The parent's powerful experience of watching herself and her child interact, and our joint efforts to translate the action-sequences into words, facilitate the mother's ability to see herself and her child, and an improved ability to engage her child."
The project is housed in the Department of Communication Sciences at the New York State Psychiatric Institute at Columbia University. The project involves 30 families with children ranging from 5 to 13 years old.
For more information on APF's visionary grant program, visit the American Psychological Foundation.
Submit proposals for disaster-relief programs
APF invites proposals for the 2007 APF Raymond A. and Rosalee G. Weiss Research and Program Grant, which supports psychology-based disaster-relief programs. The grant offers up to $20,000 for programs that:
Demonstrate a comprehensive approach to sustained rebuilding of communities.
Encourage the application of psychological science to problems arising in the aftermath of disasters and crises.
Implement psychological principles into innovative recovery programs.
Applicants must be affiliated with an educational institution or a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, but a doctoral-level degree is not required. For proposal requirements, visit American Psycological Foundation or contact Idalia Ramos, program officer, at (202) 336-5814 or e-mail. The deadline is July 1.
Check your eligibility to donate through the IRA Rollover Bill
In 2007, individuals age 70.5 years or older may donate distributions of up to $100,000 from their Traditional or Roth IRAs directly to charity without having to pay taxes on the distributions as income.
Mention the IRA Rollover Bill to your attorney or tax advisor to see if you are eligible. For more information about how to contribute to APF contact Elisabeth Straus at (202) 336-5824 or e-mail.
Blasko receives LGB family psychology grant
APF awards Kelly Blasko, a fourth-year doctoral student in counseling psychology at Pennsylvania State University, the 2007 APF Roy Scrivner Pre-Doctoral Research Grant. The $1,000 grant supports exemplary research on lesbian, gay and bisexual family psychology and therapy. For her dissertation, "Prototypical Assessment by Therapists of Same-Sex and Opposite-Sex Intimate Partner Violence Using a Control-Based Typology," Blasko is investigating stereotypic reactions of therapists to lesbian, gay and bisexual couples. Blasko will begin her clinical internship at the Center for Counseling and Psychological Services at Pennsylvania State University in August.
The APF Scrivner grants derive from a bequest from Roy Scrivner, PhD, a counseling and clinical psychologist and former president of the Texas Psychological Association. For more information, visit APF Scrivner Grants.
-A. Danberg, E. Merck, I. Ramos and D. Schwartz
