Formed as a student-led initiative at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2016, Helping Give Away Psychological Science (HGAPS) began as a club focused on improving the quality of mental health information online. As students’ projects grew, the organization formalized into a 501(c)3 nonprofit in 2018, with the mission to collect, distill, and share psychological science to promote community well-being. Supported by the organization’s national board, students in HGAPS across multiple universities have now worked for a decade to provide large-scale, open-access mental health resources.
HGAPS resources and mentorship
Using open-information platforms such as Wiki, HGAPS has developed public-facing mental health guides and tools to help practitioners, researchers, and communities globally. The HGAPS Wiki user group, composed of almost 400 members, many of whom are students, has demonstrated high impact. Editors have added 2.2 million words across Wiki platforms and created over 500 articles, which have since generated more than 710 million article views.
Editing efforts have gone into promoting cross-cultural mental health resources. In January 2022, HGAPS received a $5,000 Wikimedia Foundation Rapid Grant to assemble relevant resources relating to topics addressed in the popular TV show Squid Game. That July, HGAPS at Korea University hosted a live Edit-a-Thon event to gather reputable evidence-based psychological resources to create the Squid Game resources Wikiversityopens in new window page. Another event in November 2022 further refined the work done at Korea University and professionally translated the page into Korean. The Wikiversity page features comprehensive content disclaimers and psychological resources to guide viewers through potentially sensitive or triggering content.
Partnering with the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance, HGAPS also assembled the Assessment Centeropens in new window, compiling more than 200 PDFs with psychological measures and batteries into one platform to aid help-seeking individuals and clinicians in finding credible mental health resources. Each measure on the Assessment Center is free to use, maintains anonymity, and features instant scoring and downloadable results. The Assessment Center was created by and continues to be maintained through student efforts and collaborations with faculty and organizations across the country.
HGAPS provides motivated students with valuable mentorship, research opportunities, and leadership experience. Students are guided by faculty advisors on how to identify high-quality science to include in mental health resources and to support research projects. HGAPS’ clinical infographics project developing accessible infographics about mental health symptoms receives regular feedback from faculty advisors, who review all of the resources in each infographic to ensure they reflect accurate, evidence-based science. Faculty have also led university-wide interactive workshops at UNC Chapel Hill, directly instructing students on how to use tools such as R to analyze data and how to leverage Wiki platforms for the dissemination of psychological science. Experienced students are also encouraged to use the skills they have learned from faculty to teach new members about how to find reputable sources and to present research. This mentorship has enabled students to showcase their efforts in dissemination science through poster presentations at conferences such as APA, ABCT, JCCAP’s Future Directions Forum, and MICAMH.
Getting involved with HGAPS
Student engagement functions as the driving force of HGAPS’ efforts. Each week, students meet to work on a variety of projects dedicated to promoting psychological science. From editing Wiki pages to developing resources about evidence-based assessment to creating infographics with reputable information about mental health conditions, HGAPS is dedicated to providing quality resources to the general public.
Currently, instructions for starting a university chapter of HGAPS, known as the Starter Pack, are found on the HGAPS website. New chapters will continue to contribute to HGAPS’ dissemination efforts, as well as collaborate with existing chapters to bring together larger-scale projects.
While most in-person events happen at UNC Chapel Hill, HGAPS content and resourcesopens in new window are universal. Working meetings held by the UNC Chapel Hill chapter are in a hybrid format, enabling students across the world to join to collaborate on existing projects. Students in any phase of their professional career are able to contribute to HGAPS projects and are free to join HGAPS’ working meetings over Zoom. HGAPS welcomes all involvement with open arms, wishing to empower students across the world to lead their own projects and contribute to open science practices.
About the author
Maggie Meyers is a second-year undergraduate student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill studying psychology and neuroscience. As an executive for the UNC Chapel Hill chapter of HGAPS, she has contributed to the dissemination of evidence-based mental health resources and tools and collaborated with researchers across the country. She is also a student researcher, leading a project investigating social support exchanges in adolescent online communities with the support of an undergraduate research award.
As both a mental health advocate and researcher, she will continue to present work on adolescents’ interactions with digital media and to advance her efforts in science communication. She will also continue to disseminate clinical tools and mental health resources to underserved populations. In the future, she aspires to become a child and adolescent psychiatrist.