The Director of Deaf and Hard of Hearing Child Resilience Center’s (DHHCRC), Dr. Lori Day, G-’08 & PhD ’10, has been awarded $3 million by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).
The 5-year award is funded through SAMHSA’s National Child Traumatic Stress Initiative – Category II Treatment and Service Adaptation mechanism, which allows the DHHCRC to continue and expand its much-needed work to make trauma-informed mental health care more accessible and available to Deaf and hard of hearing people.
The Center was established in 2021, under Day’s first SAMHSA award. Over the past five years, the DHHCRC has been incredibly active. It has made standardized psychological screening tools more accurate via translation and cultural validation, developed accessible resources for psychological interventions, and provided direct training in ASL and English to hundreds of professionals, families, and community members.
“The DHHCRC has positively reshaped how trauma-informed care is developed, delivered, and available for Deaf and hard of hearing communities,” says Provost Khadijat K. Rashid, ’90.
Day looks forward to what this next round of funding will allow the DHHCRC to accomplish. “We now have the opportunity to package many of the resources that we developed or are in the works, as well as create some new ones,” she says.
Under the new cycle of SAMHSA funding, the Center also plans to work in schools, piloting a new model that addresses gaps across the full trauma-care continuum for deaf, hard of hearing, and deafblind youth from birth through age 21, rather than focusing only on specialty treatment.
“The model brings together trauma prevention, accessible, early screening and assessment, stronger school-based referral pathways, family engagement and resilience resources, and adapted trauma interventions. To support the professionals on the ground who provide care, the Center will provide workforce development, implementation guidance, technical assistance, fidelity support, and continuous quality improvement,” explains Day.
Day credits the Center’s work to the dedication of her team at Gallaudet and external partners:
- Patrick Boudreault – Translation & Accessibility Lead
- Dr. Danielle Previ, G-’15 & PhD ’18, – Clinical Implementation Specialist
- Dr. Morgane Vincent, ’17, G-’20, PhD ’23 – Workforce Development and Training Lead
- Robert Whitaker, G-’96 – School Partnerships & Resource Hub Lead
- Motion Light Lab (ML2) – Mental Health Storybook Partner
- External Partners: Language Deprivation Track Director, Dr. Wyatte Hall, G-’12 & PhD ’14, Intervention Track Co-Directors Ms. Kristine Gile and Ms. Kasey Pendexter, and External Evaluator, Dr. Sharon Baker.
Learn more about the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Child Resilience Center
