Research
Mentoring the Next Generation of Health Service Psychologists
The FAMH Lab's mentoring-related scholarship reflects a strong commitment to training, supporting, and diversifying the next generation of health service psychologists, with particular emphasis on equity and professional development. Several publications directly address mentoring processes and trainee experiences, including work on Black graduate student training in pediatric psychology (Jones et al., 2025), which highlights structural barriers, culturally responsive mentorship, and strategies to promote success and retention among underrepresented trainees. Complementing this, earlier work (e.g., Jones et al., 2018) emphasizes the importance of intentional mentoring and inclusive training climates, particularly during periods of sociopolitical stress, underscoring how mentorship can buffer against marginalization and improve trainee well-being.
Our lab also examines mentoring within clinical training contexts, including supervision and skill development. For example, studies such as Johnson et al. (2023) and Jones & Eddy (2017) explore how training environments—such as hospital-based integrated care practica and the use of real-time supervision tools—can enhance trainee competence and learning. These contributions highlight mentorship as both a relational and skill-building process embedded within clinical systems.
In addition, our work extends to workforce development in integrated care, where mentoring is framed as essential for preparing trainees to function in interdisciplinary, fast-paced environments (e.g., Perrin et al., 2020; see integrated primary care research description below). This includes attention to competencies, supervision models, and the challenges trainees face when adapting to team-based care.
Finally, emerging and in-progress work further underscores our focus on trainee well-being, sustainability, and professional identity development, reflecting a holistic approach to mentoring that integrates mental health, career development, and systemic supports. Overall, our mentoring scholarship advances the field by demonstrating how equity-focused, contextually grounded, and developmentally informed mentorship practices can strengthen both trainee outcomes and the broader psychology workforce.
Black Youth and Family Mental Health
The FAMH Lab's scholarship on Black youth and family mental health is characterized by a strong emphasis on culturally informed, family-centered, and equity-focused research that examines both risk and resilience across developmental and caregiving contexts. Across multiple studies, we investigate mental health disparities affecting Black children and adolescents, particularly in relation to ADHD, anxiety, depression, and comorbid conditions. This work includes identifying patterns of symptom presentation, impairment, and comorbidity, as well as examining how broader contextual factors—such as racial discrimination, sleep, and social determinants of health—impact youth mental health outcomes (e.g., Valrie et al., 2025; Shipman-Lacewell et al., 2023).
A central component of our research is the role of caregivers and family systems, especially Black mothers. Our work explores how maternal factors—such as psychopathology, stress, parenting cognitions, and ADHD symptoms—shape child outcomes and family functioning (e.g., Jones et al., 2024). We also examine how parenting practices, treatment beliefs, and barriers to care influence help-seeking and engagement, highlighting the importance of understanding family dynamics within culturally and structurally informed contexts.
The FAMH Lab's scholarship further contributes to the field by addressing structural inequities and access to care, particularly through integrated primary care and community-based settings. We emphasize how Black youth and families often encounter barriers to traditional mental health services and demonstrate how integrated models and culturally responsive approaches can improve access, engagement, and outcomes. Related work also examines treatment utilization patterns and disparities in representation within evidence-based interventions (e.g., Merrill et al., 2024).
Our work takes a strengths-based and culturally responsive perspective, focusing not only on risk but also on protective factors and resilience within Black families. This includes attention to identity, cultural context, and community influences, as well as the need for interventions that are both evidence-based and culturally congruent.
Overall, our body of work advances understanding of Black youth and family mental health by integrating developmental, clinical, and contextual perspectives, with the goal of reducing disparities, improving engagement in care, and promoting more equitable and effective mental health services.
Perinatal Mental Health
FAMH Lab scholarship on perinatal mental health focuses on understanding risk, engagement in care, and health disparities among pregnant and postpartum women, with particular attention to underserved populations. Across our publications, we examine the relationships among mental health symptoms (e.g., ADHD, depression), health behaviors, and quality of life during pregnancy, demonstrating how psychological factors are closely linked to prenatal functioning and maternal well-being. This work highlights how untreated mental health concerns during the perinatal period can shape both maternal outcomes and broader family health trajectories.
A key component of our research centers on engagement in prenatal and perinatal care, including identifying barriers to consistent care utilization. Our work shows that psychosocial factors—such as stress, mental health symptoms, and structural inequities—play a significant role in whether individuals access and remain engaged in prenatal care. Related studies, including randomized controlled trials and secondary analyses, examine strategies to improve prenatal care attendance and adherence, particularly among Black women at elevated risk for poor health outcomes.
Our scholarship also contributes to understanding perinatal mental health within integrated and interdisciplinary care models, emphasizing the importance of embedding behavioral health into medical settings to enhance access and early intervention. In addition, we have collaborated with teams exploring innovative and scalable interventions, such as internet-based prevention programs, that can expand access to mental health support during the perinatal period.
Our lab seeks to highlight how social determinants of health, systemic barriers, and cultural context shape perinatal experiences and outcomes, while also identifying opportunities to improve care through tailored, accessible interventions.
Integrated Primary Care
Integrated Care research in the FAMH Lab centers on four main areas: service delivery in pediatric primary care, patient characteristics and disparities, treatment engagement/utilization, and workforce training/implementation. Early work (e.g., Power et al., 2014; Borschuk et al., 2015) demonstrates the feasibility and clinical utility of embedding mental health services into primary care practices, highlighting integrated care as an effective model for increasing access and coordination of services.
Our research also places strong emphasis on understanding the needs and profiles of patients in integrated care, especially underserved and Black youth (e.g., Floyd & Jones, 2025; Floyd et al., 2025). This work helps clarify how youth engage with integrated services and where gaps in care remain. Further, we have disseminated work focused on treatment engagement, referral processes, and outcomes in IPC settings. This includes research on predictors of follow-up attendance, parent-provider discrepancies in symptom reporting, and acceptability of behavioral interventions. Collectively, these studies emphasize barriers to care—particularly for marginalized families—and inform strategies to improve engagement and continuity of treatment.
Finally, our scholarship contributes to implementation and training in integrated care systems. Work such as Perrin et al. (2020) highlights how IPC training programs adapted to telepsychology during COVID-19, demonstrating the flexibility and scalability of integrated care models. Additional contributions (e.g., Johnson et al., 2023; our 2018 handbook chapter) focus on training interdisciplinary providers and implementing IPC programs in real-world settings, especially in urban and low-income communities.