Nhial Tutlam, assistant professor at the Brown School and associate director for research at the International Center for Child Health and Development (ICHAD), has been awarded the highly prestigious K01 Research Scientist Career Development Award.
Over the next four years, this $720,000 award from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), which is part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), will support Tutlam’s innovative research aimed at addressing mental health outcomes among youth from vulnerable refugee families resettled in the United States. Importantly, this award will provide him with training in community-based intervention development, mixed methods, and implementation science research.
Tutlam’s study titled, Resettled Refugee Families for Healing (RRF4H): A Study of the Intergenerational Impact of War Trauma and Resilience, will test an intervention designed to enhance the mental health well-being of second-generation refugee children by addressing intergenerational trauma-related mental health symptoms. This intervention combines a family strengthening intervention that has been successfully implemented to address mental health challenges among families facing multiple adversities in the U.S. and Sub-Saharan Africa, as well as a peer mentorship program called TeenAge Health Consultants (TAHC), which Tutlam implemented as part of a violence prevention program in St. Louis county schools. The project will be implemented in Omaha and Lincoln, Nebraska, cities with large resettled refugee populations.
Tutlam said, “Despite the high prevalence of trauma-associated emotional and behavioral problems among these vulnerable youth, there are very few interventions to address them. Therefore, this work has the potential to transform the lives of countless youth, providing them with the support and resources they need to heal and thrive.”
Learn more on the ICHAD webpage.