College of Education and Human Development

School of Social Work

SSW’s Abdi and Choy-Brown Awarded Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration Grant

The School of Social Work Dr.’s Saida Abdi, Principle Investigator, and Mimi Choy-Brown, Co-Investigator have been awarded a 5-year, $1.99 million grant from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration starting on September 30, 2021. 

The Collaborative for Resilient Kids and Families in Minnesota is a partnership between The University of Minnesota School of Social Work, Watercourse Counseling Center, Somali American Parents Association, Comunidades Latinas Unidas En Servicio, Minneapolis Public Schools, and Boston Children’s Hospital Trauma and Community Resilience Center. This collaboration aims to provide trauma-responsive, culturally, and linguistically relevant mental health support to East African and Latinx children, youth, and their families in Minneapolis. Specifically, the project objectives include (1) engaging Latinx and East African communities in trauma-responsive mental health services at all services levels; (2) improving psychosocial outcomes for East African and Latinx children attending MPS; (3) increasing capacity in Minnesota to address refugee and immigrant trauma that reflects cultural needs; and (4) utilizing outcome evaluation data to increase support and sustainability for the model statewide.

This grant comes at an opportune time as Minneapolis Public Schools students return to classrooms after many being in distance-learning for over a year. There is a critical need to provide psychosocial support to students as they reacclimate to school routines and deal with losses related to the pandemic. This is even more critical for students, families, and communities of color who face long-standing disparities amplified by the impact of COVID-19.

Dr. Saida Abdi’s area of focus is building individual, family, and community resilience and improving the responsiveness of systems of care to the needs of refugee and immigrant communities. Her passion is developing trauma-informed culturally-clinically integrated services that are led or co-led by community members to enhance capacity building and ensure ownership and engagement.

Dr. Mimi Choy-Brown

Dr. Mimi Choy-Brown’s research interests are in community mental health services and implementation science. The overall goal of her research is to identify effective methods to improve the accessibility, effectiveness, and quality of community mental health care for individuals who have experienced a serious mental illness.