Expanding School Mental Health

The PRISMS (Prevention Research In Substance use and Minority Health in Schools) research lab, led by Dr. Sycarah Fisher within the Educational Psychology Department at the University of Georgia, focuses on the prevention and intervention of mental health and substance misuse in low-resource minority service schools.

Specifically, our research focuses on the identification of risk and protective factors to assist in the development of a full model of risk for minority substance use.  In addition, the lab focuses on the implementation of evidence based substance use and mental health interventions within largely diverse school settings. Lastly, the lab focuses on school psychological professional practice issues related to service provision for minority youth including multicultural competence and the ability to work effectively with diverse populations through the application of cultural knowledge and to demonstrate awareness of and sensitivity to cultural issues.


What we do

Research

The PRISMS Lab focuses on the following research areas:
  • Adolescent substance misuse
  • Models of risk and resilience for minority mental health and substance misuse
    • African American youth
    • Multiracial youth
  • Ethnic Racial Identity Development
  • School-based substance use interventions
  • Expanded school mental health services
  • Implementation Science
  • Culturally relevant service provision

Mentoring

Mentoring Philosophy
  • Dr. Fisher believes that mentoring should be a collaborative process between mentor and mentee, adapting to each mentees individual needs.
  • Dr. Fisher also believes in providing explicit instruction (if necessary) in all academic skills to provide adequate opportunity to achieve success.
Mentoring areas
  • Research content areas
  • Research Process
  • Writing and publishing
  • Academic presentations
  • Statistics
  • Grant writing
  • Journal Reviews

Community

The PRISMS labs ultimate goal is to bring evidence based practices to community settings (i.e., schools) to increase access to mental health and substance use services for underserved (i.e., African American, low-income) populations.

We have 3 goals for community engagement:
  1. Collaborate with local schools and community settings to assist in the implementation of evidence-based strategies
  2. Engage in community outreach through social media channels to provide education to the public around minority mental health and substance misuse
  3. Use our platform to compile and disseminate best practices and training opportunities in mental health and substance misuse for school-based mental health service providers