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Project coordinator works to enhance an internal understanding of Community-Based Participatory Action Research and culturally responsive practices at the National Center for School Mental Health.
This is the latest in a series from the University of Maryland, Baltimore's Interprofessional Program for Academic Community Engagement (IPACE) highlighting one of its inaugural fellows.
Karah Palmer, MEd, research project coordinator at the National Center for School Mental Health (NCSMH) at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, is one of the inaugural IPACE fellows. As part of her fellowship, Palmer is working to enhance an internal understanding of Community-Based Participatory Action Research (C-PAR) and culturally responsive practices, to strengthen the center’s existing relationships with community partners. Each fellow is tasked with completing a project that enhances community engagement at UMB and for her project, Palmer hopes to provide ongoing C-PAR resources and training within her team at the NCSMH.
Palmer has also developed partnerships within the fellowship and has been working with fellow Teresa Schmiedeler on holding workshops and sharing resources for UMB law students in Schmiedeler’s program. This October, Palmer held an hourlong session for Schmiedeler’s public interest law students, which highlighted the connection among self-care, emotional resilience, and effective public service. As a fellow, she is supported by Dr. Lori Edwards, who is leading the fellowship, and by the other 13 faculty, staff, and community leader fellows.
All the fellows have had to adapt to the new COVID-19 reality, but Palmer is still making headway toward her goal. She has already met with her internal NCSMH team to discuss building community engagement and enabling more stakeholder participation, by reformatting meetings and thinking through new ways to gather feedback. Palmer also successfully joined the Department of Psychiatry’s Division of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry’s Division Initiatives/Social Justice Training subcommittee and is looking forward to developing in this new opportunity.
To learn more about the IPACE Fellows Program, the work of the other fellows, and the upcoming application for cohort 2, please click here.