Vicky H
- Research Program Mentor
PhD candidate at George Washington University
Expertise
Clinical Psychology, Community Psychology, Mental Health, Adolescence, Culture, Parent-child relationships, Coparenting relationships, Minority mental health, Racial disparities, Public policy, Nonprofits
Bio
Hi! I'm excited to meet you and support you in your academic and research journey. I am a Ph.D. student in Clinical Psychology at GWU, where I study youth & family relationships. Some topics I'm currently researching are: youth mental health, parent-child relationships, mental health stigma, culture, and ethnic minority communities. Before starting school, I worked in public policy. I helped to develop and evaluate nonprofit and community programs for parents, families, and youth who were homeless or involved in the justice or child welfare systems. I am really passionate about applied research, which means finding ways to make the research I do actually impact and improve society!Project ideas
Design or Evaluate a Nonprofit or Community Program
Get first-hand experience in public policy by learning how to evaluate the effectiveness of a community program! Are you passionate about homelessness, criminal justice, youth empowerment, therapy, Diversity & Inclusion, or something else? I can work with you to partner with a community agency, design an evaluation study, and analyze whether or not a program or service is actually improving society. If you are interested in program design, we can work together to design a workshop, program, or intervention. Then we can find ways to implement and evaluate it with a nonprofit or community organization.
How does culture and family play a role in the way you relate to others?
Why do you relate to your friends, romantic partners, and family the way that you do? For this project, you'll collect data from your parents/guardians, siblings, partners, and friends based on psychological frameworks in culture, parenting, and familial relationships. You'll conduct a literature review and write a paper (and maybe even develop a theory!) about how your cultural values, your parent's relationships, and your family dynamics have played a role in the way that you relate to others.
Does Therapy Work For Everyone? Understanding Minority Mental Health
Psychological treatments were historically developed for White, male, upper class populations. As a result, recent research has been focused on understanding why different types of therapies work for different people based on their identity, culture, therapist, and many different factors. For this project, we can choose one factor to dive deeper into. Examples might be: mental health stigma in Asian communities, barriers to therapy for low-income communities, cultural adaptations to treatments. Then, I can help you to conduct a literature review, create a Ted Talk or podcast, or write an op-ed about how therapy could be adapted to be more effective for certain populations.