Bike south along the Link Trail, take a Transpo bus along Route 7, or drive a block past Rocco’s restaurant on South Bend Avenue, and you’ll find a building that’s more than bricks and siding. It’s the region’s newest mental health ally.

When it opens this June, the Wilma and Peter Veldman Family Psychology Clinic will expand local access to mental healthcare through a combination of research, training, and service. The clinic will significantly expand the evidence-based mental health services that Notre Dame provides to the community, while also serving as the new home of the William J. Shaw Center for Children and Families and the newly launched Human Neuroimaging Center.

With three levels and 35,000 square feet of therapy rooms, labs, childcare spaces, and more, the Veldman Clinic is a grand undertaking that, through the thought and passion put into its design, feels less like a facility and more like a home.

“On campus, we tend toward these very formal buildings that are beautiful, but what we needed is a beautiful fit for the community, where people can feel comfortable,” said Jennifer Burke Lefever, the clinic’s managing director.
The clinic’s goal is to meet people where they are, and that starts before they even enter the building. Its position in the East Bank neighborhood makes the clinic a gateway to downtown South Bend, easily reached by bike, foot, bus, or car.

After passing through an accessible entrance, community members are welcomed into a lobby filled with natural light and comfy furniture. On the two-story entrance wall, there’s a large array of butterflies made from hand-painted silk scarves, designed by women at the St. Margaret’s House day center. The butterflies represent transformation, and the artwork’s curve mimics that of the St. Joseph River, as seen in the South Bend flag and the Veldman Clinic’s logo.

Beyond the lobby, design choices both distinct and subtle aim to reduce stress. Artwork across from the elevators uses patterns invoking the art of kintsugi, a Japanese pottery practice of repairing cracks with gold — a reminder that healing can create something stronger and more beautiful than before. A wall in the children’s room is covered with a nature scene made from soft felt. Wide hallways with tall ceilings reduce feelings of claustrophobia, with windows at the end of every corridor aiding visual orientation. And everything from furniture to drinking fountains was selected with wheelchair users in mind.

The clinic’s design also incorporates innovative technologies being introduced to the University for the first time. The Human Neuroimaging Center — led by Aron Barbey, the Andrew J. McKenna Family Professor of Psychology — will house an MRI machine capable of producing structural, functional, and metabolic brain imaging, driving ambitious neuroscience research. The building’s 40 therapy rooms will use a new VALT video system to securely record therapy sessions led by clinical psychology graduate students, so supervisors will be able to review sessions on demand.

“One of our studies will use every floor of the Veldman Clinic,” said Kaylin Hill, an assistant professor of psychology.

Hill’s research focuses on understanding reward and emotion and how they relate to clinical disorders like major depression. She often uses psychophysiological tools, such as an electroencephalogram (EEG), which tracks brain signals through electrodes placed on the scalp. The Veldman Clinic’s EEG setups and interview rooms will help her conduct research outside of her lab in Corbett Family Hall, which is less accessible for the families she works with.

The long-held dream of a psychology clinic finally became a reality through support from leadership at Notre Dame and the College of Arts & Letters, as well as the generosity of multiple Veldman family foundations, including those of Sharon and Matt Edmonds, Connie and Mike Joines, and Anita and Tom Veldman. But Burke Lefever and Kristin Valentino, the clinic’s director and a professor of psychology, knew it wouldn’t be successful without significant input from community partners who have long worked in the area.

Those partners include Oaklawn, a provider of mental health services and addiction treatment; Beacon Community Impact, the public health arm of Beacon Health Systems; and the CASIE Center, which works to prevent child abuse and support survivors. All three are located within blocks of the Veldman Clinic.

“We have a role to play within the system that is already in place, so we need close collaboration with community partners to ensure we are adding value and addressing needs rather than recreating something that already exists,” Valentino said.

A strong internal team of about 20 staff across the Veldman Clinic, Shaw Center, and Human Neuroimaging Center are essential to supporting the research of faculty and graduate students and the services they provide.

Staff clinicians, including a licensed clinical social worker, are joining the clinic to expand the amount and types of care the University can provide. In the past, the Notre Dame Department of Psychology has only offered clinical services provided by graduate students who are training to become psychologists and are supervised by faculty.

With licensed clinicians adding to the students’ work, the number of clinical care and impact hours annually provided by Notre Dame is projected to increase from 8,000 to 27,000. The clinic’s impact will be even wider as graduate students earn their doctorates and start their own practices, and as evidence-based interventions developed through research are implemented in community settings throughout the region and across the country.

Every person working at the clinic has a role to play in fulfilling the clinic’s mission. The administrative coordinator, who welcomes visitors at the front desk, is trained in de-escalation tactics, ready to be a mental health crisis first responder. Data managers, community liaisons, the Office of Information Technology, facilities teams, research assistants, and other professionals will also contribute to the clinic’s work, adding to the countless hours already put in by architects, designers, and project managers.

“It definitely takes a team across the entire campus to make it all happen,” said Heidi Miller, assistant director for staff management and operations at the clinic. “We all believe in what we’re doing, and that’s what makes it work.”

Originally published by Adah McMillan at ndworks.nd.edu on May 04, 2026.

The cornerstone of that work is the physical clinic nearing completion at the site of the former Psychological Services Center at 501 N. Hill Street. Strategically located within a mental health campus near Downtown South Bend, the 35,000-square-foot facility clinic will act as a centralized hub for faculty and student collaboration, as well as an easily accessible location for community members to receive services.

The facility will also include a neuroimaging center with an fMRI machine, a piece of technology Burke Lefever describes as critical for bridging clinical care with innovative research. The fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) will be the only one of its kind in the South Bend area. Another distinctive feature for work of this nature: collaborative spaces designed to facilitate spontaneous innovation between researchers.

"We’re going to use a shared space model, which opens up possibilities for faculty to expand the work that they're doing and make collaboration easier. Our staff will help facilitate work in those shared spaces, including faculty and graduate students, as well as clinicians.”

As the physical spaces continue to take shape, Burke Lefever remains as connected to the mission—and her passion—as ever.

“I've always felt my goal in life is to try to make the world a better place for children. One of the core pieces of Catholic social teaching is treating people—especially the most vulnerable—with dignity. By supporting someone’s mental health, you help restore their felt sense of dignity.”

Get involved 

Learn more about the Veldman Family Psychology Clinic

Learn more about the Mental Health Initiative

Learn more about the University's strategic initiatives

Connect with the Veldman Family Psychology Clinic on April 27

Additional features

Arnie Phifer, Bioengineering & Life Sciences Initiative

Angie Appleby Purcell, Ethics Initiative

Joel Day, Democracy Initiative

Kevin Fink, Just Transformations to Sustainability

Rebecca Struch, Arts Initiative

Originally published by Jenna Liberto at ndworks.nd.edu on January 20, 2026.

The updates from Executive Vice President Shannon Cullinan and Vice President for Human Resources Heather Christophersen also included new details about a simplified approach to performance management and the University’s continued investment in undergraduate financial aid.

More than 1,200 staff attended the town hall across three 45-minute sessions held in the Leighton Concert Hall and Carey Auditorium.

Changes to performance management, Self Service Center

Christophersen said the new performance management structure simplifies the existing process to promote more meaningful conversations between supervisors and direct reports.

The changes include more flexibility in how staff write their expectations, as well as an evaluation based on “performance dimensions”—attributes connected to one’s role—instead of an overall numerical ranking.

“We heard from you about the feeling of being associated with a number, or put in a box,” Christophersen said.

Christophersen also discussed enhancements to the Self Service Center, an online hub where employees can access information, tools, and support related to Human Resources. The new site has an updated interface for easier navigation, and a real-time live chat during specific hours.

“It’s designed to help you find answers whenever you’re looking for them, whether that be in the evening with your spouse and you’re trying to find medical information, or if your childcare fell through in the morning,” Christophersen said.

Christophersen also announced the return of Staff Appreciation Night at the South Bend Cubs, which is scheduled for Thursday, July 23. More information will follow later this spring.

Cullinan thanks staff, shares financial aid increase

In his remarks, Cullinan expressed gratitude for staff members’ hard work and thoughtful stewardship since last year’s spring town hall, when he and other leaders outlined “storm clouds” the University faced.

“You’ve done extraordinary work,” Cullinan said. “Here, everybody’s in the tent together. It isn’t like that everywhere in higher education when you’ve got challenges.”

Cullinan also encouraged staff to continue caring for one another, which he called a hallmark of Notre Dame’s culture.

“If you’re hurting, this is a good place to be,” he said. “Particularly when we come to work, let’s look out for each other.”

On the same day an expansion to the Pathways to Notre Dame program was announced, Cullinan also discussed Notre Dame’s push to become more accessible and affordable.

Approximately 50% of undergraduates receive need-based financial aid, with another 20% receiving other forms of aid. Among those students receiving need-based aid this year, the average tuition paid was about $8,300, Cullinan said. Because of the Pathways program, no financial aid packages include loans.

“You should be really proud of this, because it takes all of us,” he said.

Cullinan also gave an update on campus construction projects, including two new residence halls, Coyle and Therese Mary Grojean halls, that will house more than 500 students starting in August. He also highlighted the Veldman Family Psychology Clinic, where Notre Dame faculty, students, and staff will provide mental health care to the South Bend community and conduct research starting this fall.

Panel on well-being and stress management

The remainder of the Staff Town Hall was dedicated to the topics of well-being and stress management. The segment began with a panel featuring Nancy Michael, the Rev. John A. Zahm, C.S.C., Teaching Professor of Biological Sciences; Amanda Zelechoski, the Veldman Clinic’s director of clinical services; and Jennifer Burke Lefever, managing director of the Veldman Clinic.

The panel covered how stress affects both our minds and bodies. While some stress is a normal part of daily life, the group explained, it can create long-term negative health impacts if left unaddressed.

The connection between stress and our bodies is meant to help us respond to what’s happening in our environment, Michael said. The lower-order parts of our brain process a situation based on past experiences and quickly prepare the body for what it thinks will occur.

When a moment of uncertainty occurs, Michael said, our body reacts with the signs typical of stress and anxiety: increased heart rate and blood pressure, perspiration, and more.

This mechanism helps us defend ourselves against danger, but it can also be directed toward non-life-threatening situations. Lefever used the example of stress affecting her sleep the night before the town hall as she wondered what to say to the audience.

“I don’t have a tiger chasing me,” she said, “but that impacted my health.”

Because our stress response is controlled by the lower-order parts of our brain, rationalizing or wishing away the stress isn’t an effective way to curb it, Zelechoski said. Instead, physical techniques like deep breathing can help offset the body’s natural response.

“When you’re stressed or frustrated and people tell you, ‘Hey, just calm down.’ Is that helpful?” Zelechoski asked the audience. “It doesn’t work because your brain is in survival mode.”

To practice some of these stress management techniques, the town hall concluded with Donna Armentrout, a clinician at the Veldman Clinic, leading the audience in two mindfulness exercises.

“Sometimes stress, worry, sadness show up in ways we’re not expecting, at times we’re not expecting,” Armentrout said. “It helps to have simple, reliable tools to use in those moments to help us feel calm and grounded.”

You can see the techniques Armentrout shared, and a full video recording of town hall with the option for closed captioning, on the executive vice president’s website.

Originally published by NDWorks at ndworks.nd.edu on March 30, 2026.

The new three-year program, called the St. Joseph County Universal Wellness Project, aims to help bridge the gap in local mental health care for young people through in-person or digital single-session interventions — evidence-based approaches that can make a meaningful difference in mental health in a short amount of time.

The program will train 75 local providers to offer a one-time, solution-focused meeting with youth in need of mental health support. It will also offer local youth access to an online platform that provides a self-directed experience, using videos, tips and suggestions on available resources to help create a plan for improving their mental health.

“We are taking evidence-based methods developed through rigorous research and creating a way to scale them so they reach the people who need them most,” said Kristin Valentino, a Notre Dame professor of psychology and director of the Veldman Family Psychology Clinic, which will lead the project locally. “In addition to giving local youth free and anonymous mental health support tools, we believe this project will strengthen our community and serve as a national model for scaling county-level interventions.”

Developed by Jessica Schleider — a Northwestern associate professor of medical social sciences and founding director of the Lab for Scalable Mental Health — and her team, the digital and provider-delivered single-session intervention programs have shown through dozens of clinical trials to reduce youth depression and anxiety symptoms for up to 12 months and increase motivation to seek further care. Collectively, these brief, barrier-free programs have helped more than 100,000 individuals and families improve their coping abilities and have proven effective across a diverse range of youth populations.

Schleider’s free digital intervention platform, Project YES, will be adapted for St. Joseph County youth by the Veldman Clinic and community partners, and its clinical and implementation effectiveness will be evaluated over the course of a year.

“This is a dream project for me, and precisely the sort of work I’m in this field to push forward,” Schleider said. “Single-session interventions, because of how scalable they are, really fill these untouched gaps in the mental health care system that high-intensity treatments like weekly psychotherapy delivered by professionals were never built to address.”

The Veldman Clinic, opening this spring at 501 N. Hill St. in South Bend’s East Bank neighborhood, will significantly enhance the research of faculty in Notre Dame’s Department of Psychology and offer immersive training for clinical psychology graduate students, who will be empowered to share pioneering evidence-based mental health practices with communities across the country. It is a key component of the Health and Well-Being Initiative in the University’s strategic framework, which emphasizes a commitment to addressing the nationwide mental health crisis.

Schleider’s approach has already been effectively deployed through a program in Montana, and serves as an example of the effectiveness of implementation science — taking evidence-based methods developed through research and developing means of scaling them to maximize their reach and effectiveness.

“The St. Joseph County Universal Wellness Project is an incredible opportunity for the Veldman Clinic to implement evidence-based interventions and build strong community partnerships as it opens its doors,” said Kenneth Scheve, the I.A. O’Shaughnessy Dean of the College of Arts & Letters. “Dissemination work of this caliber will be a core component of the clinic’s efforts to enhance mental health care throughout the region and nationwide, and I can’t wait to see the transformative impact this program has for youth in our area.”

To tailor the program to the needs of the community and ensure its tools are accessible to and meet the needs of local populations, the Veldman Clinic will recruit four community advisory boards comprised of providers and leaders of local schools, community organizations, health care providers, parents and youth.

The program is actively seeking members for one-year terms on its community advisory boards. Nominations are welcome from individuals with lived, professional or community experience relevant to youth mental health — especially those connected to schools, pediatric/behavioral health, youth services and parent/caregiver networks.

Founded by Anita and Tom Veldman, the Valinhos Foundation is a private family foundation dedicated to improving the mental health and overall well-being landscape for youth, families and communities across Indiana.

Originally published by Josh Weinhold at al.nd.edu on Dec. 22.

Contact: Tracy DeStazio, associate director of media relations, 574-631-9958 or tdestazi@nd.edu

The William J. Shaw Center for Children and Families, Eck Institute for Global Health, and The Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies are excited to welcome Eve Puffer, a leading researcher and clinical psychologist in global mental health, for a featured talk and workshop on Thursday Sept. 25. Puffer will share her expertise on developing and evaluating community-based interventions aimed at improving child mental health and family well-being.

Puffer is the founding director of the Duke Center for Global Mental Health and the Pamela and Jack Egan Associate Professor at Duke University. Her work takes her to communities around the world, including Kenya, Liberia, and the Thailand-Myanmar border, as well as low-resource areas in the United States. Puffer’s research focuses on creating and testing integrated community-based interventions that engage families directly.

Shaw Scholars Lecture

The event will feature Puffer's talk, "Families First: Community Approaches to Mental Health Prevention and Promotion," on Sept. 25. She will present case studies from her research in Kenya, the U.S., and the Thailand–Myanmar border, highlighting different strategies for adapting and delivering interventions. Puffer will discuss the use of innovative methods, like film, and the role of non-specialist providers in her work. The talk will conclude with a discussion on the future of integrating family-based interventions into community and health systems to expand their reach and impact.

This is a fantastic opportunity for students, faculty, and staff to learn about the latest approaches to global mental health and community-based care.

Event Details:

• September 25, 4:00 p.m. - 5:30 p.m.

• Carey Auditorium at the Hesburgh Library

• This event is free and open to the public.

For more details on the location and times, please check the university events calendar. We look forward to seeing you there!

Originally published by Adam Vilanova-Goldstein at shaw.nd.edu on August 25, 2025.

Jerry Haeffel, associate professor of psychology, principal investigator of the Cognition & Emotion Lab, and a fellow at the Institute for Educational Initiatives (IEI) at the University of Notre Dame, has been named a fellow of the Association for Psychological Science (APS). This prestigious recognition is awarded to psychologists who have made sustained and outstanding contributions to the science of psychology through research, teaching, service, and application.

With a research focus on cognitive and emotional processes related to depression and resilience, Haeffel’s work has advanced the field’s understanding of how cognition influences mental health outcomes. His contributions to psychological science and dedication to mentoring students and researchers are making a significant impact in the field of psychology.

"I am truly honored to be named an APS Fellow and to join such an esteemed group of scholars in the field of psychology," said Haeffel. "This recognition reflects not just my work, but also the collaboration and support of my colleagues and students, who inspire me every day. I look forward to continuing our research investigating how people's interpretations of life events confer risk and resilience to mood disorders. I am particularly excited about our collaboration with the IEI and the Center for Educational Research and Action (ERA) that extend this work to educators with the hopes of improving self-efficacy, stress management, attrition, and ultimately student outcomes."

Haeffel, who is also a steering committee member for Tutor-ND, joins a distinguished group of Notre Dame faculty honored for their impact on psychological science. Current and past APS fellows from the University include: James Brockmole, department chair and professor of psychology; Brad Gibson, professor of psychology and co-chair of the neuroscience and behavior major; Ken Kelley, Edward F. Sorin Society Professor of IT, Analytics, and Operations (ITAO) and the senior associate dean for faculty and research in the Mendoza College of Business; Nicole McNeil, professor of psychology and director of the ERA in IEI; G.A. Radvansky, professor of psychology and IEI fellow; and David Smith, professor of psychology. IEI fellows and emeritus colleagues Scott Maxwell and Darcia Narvaez also received the distinction.

“APS fellow status is one of the highest honors in the field, recognizing individuals who have significantly contributed to advancing psychological research and its applications,” said Matt Kloser, Hackett Family Director of the Institute for Educational Initiatives. “This achievement highlights Jerry’s commitment to innovation and excellence in psychological science.”

For more information on Haeffel’s work, visit the Cognition & Emotion Lab.

About the Institute for Educational Initiatives

Founded in 1996, the Institute for Educational Initiatives (IEI) consists of more than two dozen initiatives that strive to improve education for all youth, particularly the disadvantaged, paying special, though not exclusive, attention to Catholic schools. Through research, the formation of teachers and leaders, and direct service to educational systems, the IEI’s scholars and practitioners pursue interdisciplinary collaborations to better understand and improve PK-12 education both in the United States and internationally.

For more information about the IEI and its initiatives, visit iei.nd.edu.

Originally published by Kenneth Wincko at al.nd.edu on March 17, 2025.

A renowned researcher and skilled administrator, Valentino will lead the strategic vision of the center — fostering a culture that integrates research and clinical practice to benefit both areas — and cultivate key community partnerships. The Wilma and Peter Veldman Family Psychology Clinic, scheduled to open in 2026 in South Bend’s East Bank neighborhood, will bring together faculty experts focused on developing innovative methods for the prevention and treatment of mental health issues and on informing the practice of clinical care across the nation.

Uniting the work of the Shaw Center with new research on substance use and other developing areas, the clinic will foster collaboration among experts focused on evidence-based treatments to mental health issues that can improve lives in the South Bend community and across the country.

Valentino, whose research focuses on how adversity affects child development and how caregiving behaviors impact families, has led the Shaw Center since 2019.

Laura Miller-Graff, a professor of psychology and peace studies and a leading scholar examining the developmental and intergenerational effects of exposure to violence in childhood, has been named the new director of the Shaw Center. She will have strategic, administrative, budgetary, and logistical oversight over the center's research activities, training programs, and community outreach efforts.

Since joining the Notre Dame faculty in 2013, Laura has been an integral contributor to the work of the Shaw Center, and she is a a core faculty member of the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies.

Originally published by College of Arts & Letters at shaw.nd.edu on December 16, 2024.

Now, Wyman is working to ensure other families don’t experience that kind of tragedy.

Read story

Professors Laura Miller-Graff and Kristin Valentino have each developed a program to help prevent or reduce child maltreatment at a critical point for development — Miller-Graff during pregnancy, and Valentino during early childhood.

Now, the two are bringing their programs together with a $3.1 million grant from the National Institutes of Health.

“This is a great example of what can happen when faculty members have the opportunity to collaborate and work closely with each other and generate innovative ideas together,” said Valentino, the William J. Shaw Center for Children and Families Collegiate Chair in the Department of Psychology.

Over the next five years, the clinical trial will assess whether the prenatal and early childhood programs work in tandem to prevent child maltreatment.

“This project represents, more broadly, ways that researchers like us could collaborate to really create some exciting synergies around things that have been developed independently,” Miller-Graff said. “Now, it can be brought together in an interesting way.”

The power of collaboration

As a graduate student, Miller-Graff studied a program for mothers and older children who were exposed to intimate partner violence (IPV), which is physical, sexual, or emotional abuse stemming from romantic relationships. As many as 40 percent of U.S. women experience IPV in their lifetime, and it can have detrimental long-term effects on child development for children living in homes where it occurs. IPV is also one of the biggest risk factors for child maltreatment.

Though the program was effective at reducing IPV and improving maternal and child outcomes, Miller-Graff wondered if earlier intervention could prevent the onset of chronic violence in the children’s lives.

“That is really what got me interested in doing work in pregnancy, thinking about, ‘OK, how do we set things better up from the start for families?’” she said.

Miller-Graff, now a professor of psychology and peace studies at Notre Dame, worked with Dr. Kathryn Howell at the University of Wisconsin-Madison to adapt this program to specifically address the developmental needs and concerns of pregnant women. Known as the Pregnant Moms’ Empowerment Program (PMEP), this five-session program works to reduce intimate partner violence among pregnant women, improve maternal mental health, and support early positive parenting practices with the goal of preventing subsequent child maltreatment.

Valentino’s research takes an alternate approach by intervening in the early childhood years — another period when the risk of child abuse and neglect is elevated. The director of the William J. Shaw Center for Children and Families developed the Reminiscing and Emotion Training (RET) program, a six-session intervention that gives mothers tools to improve their emotional support and response to their child’s needs.

“This is an exciting opportunity to collaborate and be able to test both models together,” Valentino said. “We're hoping that receiving both interventions sort of has synergistic benefits for both mom and child.”

Building connections

With the support of the NIH grant, Miller-Graff and Valentino will commence their research by working with families in South Bend and Memphis, Tennessee.

“I think one of the primary reasons this project was selected for funding was because it's offering a new approach to child maltreatment prevention, developmentally attuned at two different important critical stages — both prenatally and during early childhood,” Valentino said.

The ability to study how families engage with multiple programs over longer periods is often limited in research. This trial, though, will focus on the same women who have already participated in a previous NIH-funded clinical trial of the PMEP and re-randomize them for participation in RET once their child is of age.

“That's unusual to see in the research,” Miller-Graff said. “We're really excited to be able to continue to support families, and follow them over a longer period of time.”

For Miller-Graff, the project is also a testament to the community built at the Shaw Center, which supports a number of programs for South Bend children and families.

“Positive relationships are central to good research, but maintaining those relationships takes time, effort, and intention,” said Miller-Graff.

Factors like housing instability, which often accompanies chronic family violence, can understandably make it more challenging for families to remain involved in programs over the long term.

“One of the things that’s really special about being at Notre Dame is that we have such an outstanding community at the Shaw Center of staff members who have developed really amazing relationships with our families across projects,” she said. “Because of that community and support, we're uniquely equipped to follow — and remarkably successful in following and supporting — families over time.”

For Valentino, who won the NIH Director’s Transformative Research Award in 2022, the project’s focus on prevention makes it especially meaningful and impactful. Because anyone — not just clinical psychologists or licensed social workers — can be trained to offer the intervention, it has great potential for scalability.

“One of my long-term goals is to be able to develop programs that can truly make a difference in the world and can prevent child maltreatment,” she said. “An important step along the way is to be able to assess the program rigorously in more than one clinical trial. This represents a really great opportunity for research that can get beyond my lab and into communities nationally.”

Originally published by Hailey Oppenlander at al.nd.edu on November 18, 2024.

Notre Dame faculty and its military-connected community are working with MSAN to offer two online courses for military spouses — one focused on ethical leadership skills in support of professional development and the other on developing skills to promote resilience and mental health, which is the latest in a series of significant commitments the University has made to fighting the nation’s mental health crisis.

Courses will be developed and presented by faculty of the William J. Shaw Center for Children and Families, the Veldman Family Psychology Clinic and the Notre Dame Deloitte Center for Ethical Leadership, who are partnering with Notre Dame Learning’s Office of Digital Learning on the design of effective online content.

“For generations, Notre Dame has valued its commitment to and support of the men and women who serve in the armed forces, and we are honored to expand our relationship through this program,” University President Rev. Robert A. Dowd, C.S.C., said. “This new partnership allows us to share our scholarship and research to support service members and their families who sacrifice so much for our country.”

MSAN will administer and launch the not-for-credit courses beginning in the spring of 2025 to an anticipated cohort of 50 military spouses.

The mental health course series aims to support military spouses in dispelling mental health myths, identifying mental health risks that are more common in military communities, and developing skills to promote wellness for themselves, their families, friends and peers. In doing so, military spouses will develop skills to practice and model self-care, support emotional resilience and act in times of stress.

The ethical leadership series reflects the Notre Dame Deloitte Center for Ethical Leadership’s mission to inform, equip and inspire values-based leadership, and will cover topics such as conflict management, voicing values at work and honesty and empathy in decision-making. In covering these skills, the aim is for military spouses to become leaders who foster resilient and flourishing communities.

“In alignment with our strategic framework commitments on ethics and mental health, Notre Dame faculty are honored to design and deliver the material for both courses responding to emergent military family needs,” said John T. McGreevy, the Charles and Jill Fischer Provost. “This is a tremendous opportunity to provide cross-disciplinary expertise to help address the immediate and pressing issues facing service members and their families.”

In 2017, the University launched the Office of Military and Veterans Affairs (OMVA) to expand its support for Notre Dame-enrolled veterans and their families, active-duty and ROTC students and those who are dependents of service members. Ken Heckel, a 23-year veteran and retired lieutenant colonel in the United States Army, serves as OMVA’s director and has helped to facilitate Notre Dame’s partnership with MSAN.

“Inspired by Notre Dame’s mission to remain a global force for good, our colleagues across the University have come together, in partnership with MSAN, to design a comprehensive program that will greatly benefit our nation’s military spouses and families,” Heckel said. “Our goal is to help empower military spouses to be ethical leaders in their communities, and to also serve as mental health advocates and positive agents of change.”

The Notre Dame-MSAN partnership is a multidisciplinary campus project. It involves faculty and staff from 10 organizations who are developing the partnership and the logistics of course creation and delivery. The project is being spearheaded and resourced by Notre Dame Research with the support of OMVA, the College of Arts and Letters, the Mendoza College of Business, Notre Dame Learning’s Office of Digital Learning, the Office of Public Affairs and Communications, the William J. Shaw Center for Children and Families, the Notre Dame Deloitte Center for Ethical Leadership, the Veldman Family Psychology Clinic and the Mental Health Initiative.

Media contact: Sue Ryan, sue.ryan@nd.edu

Originally published by Sue Ryan at news.nd.edu on October 10, 2024.

The new assistant professors — Ryan Carpenter, Haya Fatimah, Kaylin Hill, Matthew Robison, Elizabeth Shewark and Ivan Vargas — will further research in their subfields of cognitive, behavioral, clinical and developmental psychology. Their scholarly work will aim to address the psychological causes and effects of various issues such as trauma, self-harm, sleep disorders and substance use disorder.

“The addition of six new faculty members to a single department in one year is a rare and transformative event,” said James Brockmole, professor of psychology and chair of the department. “By recruiting these outstanding young scholars to Notre Dame, we have significantly expanded the questions we can ask about a wide range of mental phenomena, the methods that we can use to derive answers to those questions, and the educational opportunities that we can offer to our undergraduate and graduate students.”

Four of the new faculty are clinical psychologists and will conduct research at the new Veldman Family Psychology Clinic, which broke ground at 501 N. Hill St. in South Bend’s East Bank neighborhood on Sept. 20 and is expected to be completed in 2026. The 36,000-square-foot facility is the first piece of Notre Dame’s $68 million commitment to improving mental health on campus, in the South Bend community and across the nation.

Once at full capacity, the clinic will serve more than 1,500 people in the South Bend community annually through mental health assessment, intervention and prevention services, and will be home to faculty and graduate students developing scalable, evidence-based solutions that address childhood trauma, substance use and other mental health concerns.

Understanding where substance use disorder begins

In his research, clinical psychologist Ryan Carpenter focuses on understanding substance use in the everyday lives of everyday people.

To examine alcohol and opioid use, Carpenter uses technologies such as smartphones and portable breathalyzers to understand what occurs in people’s lives that ultimately triggers their decision to imbibe in addictive substances. In his lab, he is also interested in testing if mobile health interventions, such as smartphone apps, can be helpful to people trying to address their substance use.

“To improve treatment options, there is a critical need to better understand why some people can use substances largely without issue, while others develop significant problems,” he said.

Carpenter, who was a postdoctoral fellow at Brown University and most recently was an assistant professor at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, currently has two projects funded by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism to develop and tailor behavioral interventions to address the co-use of alcohol and opioids in young adults and to help people who are drinking alcohol while in treatment for opioid use.

At Notre Dame, Carpenter said, he’s looking forward to collaborating with his colleagues and to making lasting relationships with South Bend community partners. He said the development of the Veldman Family Psychology Clinic will also provide critical infrastructure for both conducting substance use research and providing treatment services in the community.

“A major draw of Notre Dame for me is the opportunity to be around so many people studying so many important and interesting research questions,” he said. “It’s energizing and I’m looking forward to building new collaborations here across the department, college and University, as well as the broader Michiana community.”

Predicting self-harm tendencies

Clinical psychologist Haya Fatimah studies complex dynamics in psychopathology, especially those with borderline personality and comorbid disorders.

Fatimah received her doctorate from the University of South Florida and completed a postdoctoral clinical internship at McLean Hospital with Harvard Medical School. She is particularly interested in predicting factors and behaviors that are aligned with borderline personality disorder such as suicide, non-suicidal injury and substance use. She is currently studying the complex dynamics underlying nonsuicidal self-injury in youth, with the goal of identifying critical windows of risk to inform prevention and treatment efforts.

Fatimah’s goal at Notre Dame in this research is to develop personalized treatment with a dynamic systems approach to understand personality pathology and focus on risk factors and processes at the level of a single individual.

“I am especially interested in how personality pathology emerges, and what we can do about it,” she said.

Lifting the burden of depression

Kaylin Hill finds that emotional experiences are at the heart of what is important to us.

Originally from the South Bend area, Hill received her doctorate in clinical psychology from Purdue University. She studied psychophysiological assessment in particular, using electroencephalogram as an assessment tool in understanding emotions, as well as other neural processes such as reward and error-monitoring.

“I continued to pursue these questions related to understanding emotions broadly and depression more specifically, and as I began to understand more of what these processes look like in adults, I began to ask more questions about how they developed,” she said.

She continued her analysis during a postdoctoral appointment in developmental psychopathology at Vanderbilt University. Hill’s current research focuses on how to better characterize depression symptoms, refine psychophysiological assessment for individuals, and identify both individual and contextual risk processes with a focus toward intervention.

“As a clinical psychologist, the ultimate aim of my work is to reduce the tremendous burden of depression on individuals and families,” she said.

As part of that, Hill is creating the Psychophysiology of Affect Across the Lifespan (PAL) Lab at Notre Dame, where the aim will be to examine emotion and social processes related to depression and the risk of depression in individuals and families.

“I am excited to work alongside my esteemed colleagues, to teach and mentor such wonderful students, and especially to contribute to the growing neuroscience area and to work with the community through the William J. Shaw Center for Children and Families,” Hill said. “Additionally, working on campus means that I get to revisit nostalgic experiences from when I was kid, and I am thrilled to offer the same experiences to my children alongside their grandparents.”

The challenge of attention retention

As a cognitive psychologist, Matthew Robison aims to answer questions regarding attentiveness — how are some people able to control and sustain their attention while others struggle? Why do people feel alert in some moments but not in others? How do lifestyle factors like sleep, mood and exercise affect cognitive function?

“Attention seems to be one of the core cognitive skills that leads us to success in a variety of mental endeavors,” Robison said. “However, we also know that controlling and sustaining attention is difficult, particularly for some people, and doing so for a long period of time can produce mental strain and fatigue.”

Through his research, Robison addresses three key points — identifying psychological factors that might cause a person to be inattentive and distracted, recognizing when keeping attention causes stress and fatigue, and answering if a person can improve their attention through training exercises.

Robison received his doctorate from the University of Oregon and was a postdoctoral scholar at Arizona State University and an assistant professor at the University of Texas at Arlington. A Notre Dame alumnus, he said his return as a faculty member was once a distant dream that has now come true.

“I am excited to collaborate with the wonderful faculty we have in the department and all across campus,” he said. “I’m eager to mentor graduate students to be excellent psychological scientists in this vibrant and rigorous academic environment, to teach and train our undergraduate students in psychological science, and to actively participate in the on-campus and greater South Bend community both through my research and in many other ways.”

Resilience in childhood trauma development

As an undergraduate, Elizabeth Shewark found herself becoming increasingly interested in the motivations behind people’s behavior, taking courses in developmental psychology that covered everything from the prenatal period to aging and death.

“I was hooked,” she said. “Change is life. How lucky are we that we get to change over time — that we get to explore all these different versions of ourselves over the course of our lifespan?”

Now, as a developmental psychologist at Notre Dame, Shewark has set a research goal to examine children’s resilience development within their social systems such as families, schools and neighborhoods. She examines this by applying cutting-edge research and statistical methods to illuminate the biological and environmental impacts on child development.

She has further applied this research interest, with support from a National Institutes of Health Pathway to Independence Award, toward children who face trauma and adversity through poverty and exposure to community violence.

Shewark received her doctorate from Penn State University and was inspired to come to Notre Dame after visiting with psychology faculty member Laura Miller-Graff and the psychology department, as well as attending the Lucy Family Institute for Data & Society’s Health Equity Data Forum.

“I kept thinking how amazing it would be to work here, with these brilliant individuals and at a university that asks, ‘How can we help?’” she said. “I am incredibly honored to have joined such a thoughtful, innovative and service-oriented community of scholars where I feel like I can have an impact. I look forward to building connections both within the University and in the surrounding communities to advance healthy development for all.”

Insomnia’s impact on health

Sleep can occupy a third of one’s life, yet little is known about it. Ivan Vargas’ research aims to better understand insomnia and its effects on overall health.

“One idea I hope people can take away from the work that I do is that insomnia is not only bad for your sleep, it’s also bad for your health,” he said. “Insomnia affects a lot of people every day, and we often overlook the negative consequences it can have on our overall mental and physical health.”

Vargas received his doctorate in clinical psychology from the University of Michigan and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Behavioral Sleep Medicine Program and the Center for Sleep and Circadian Neurobiology at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. He was most recently an assistant professor at the University of Arkansas.

His work includes a number of projects that evaluate behavioral interventions for sleep such as cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia. His research is currently supported by a National Institutes of Health career development award funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.

Vargas also received his bachelor’s degree from Notre Dame and said he’s excited to see the University’s increased commitment to identifying solutions to address the mental health crisis.

“I look forward to the opportunities that this will provide to our department,” he said. “My hope is that in my time here at Notre Dame, we can expand the knowledge and resources that are available for people struggling with insomnia and related sleep problems.”

Originally published by Mary Kinney at al.nd.edu on Sept. 25.

Contact: Tracy DeStazio, associate director of media relations, 574-631-9958 or tdestazi@nd.edu

That financial investment will:

• Fund the creation of the new Veldman Family Psychology Clinic, which will develop scalable, evidence-based solutions in childhood trauma, suicide prevention and substance use.

• Provide cutting-edge technology that will advance the University’s psychology and neuroscience research.

• Expand the number of faculty and triple the number of students conducting mental health-related research on campus.

• Increase mental health services for Notre Dame students through a unique campus partnership among academic and student affairs units.

• Grow the availability of mental health care in the South Bend region.

The scope of these solutions is expected to have an impact well beyond campus and the local community — University leaders anticipate outcomes from the multidisciplinary work will serve as a future scalable model for other academic and public institutions.

“As we face what some have called a mental health epidemic, Notre Dame is proud to undertake this ambitious initiative in comprehensive mental health care, research and services,” said University President Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C. “Thanks to generous benefactors who have joined us in recognizing the need for increased support, we will confront this crisis which plagues students and our local and global communities. Together, we will seek evidence-based, effective and scalable solutions to address the overwhelming demand for mental health diagnoses and treatment, and help train the next generation of mental health professionals.”

Notre Dame identified mental health as one of several priorities in its strategic framework for the next decade, and announced the Veldman Family Psychology Clinic in January as a first step in that commitment. Today’s announcement further builds on this strategy with details of how research and services will expand at the clinic and on campus.

Through the new clinic, faculty and graduate students from the Department of Psychology will increase mental health care capacity and access for community members, while also researching trauma, suicide prevention and substance abuse, three root causes of the mental health crisis. The goal is to develop innovative solutions that will become scalable treatment models across the country.

This investment is the start of the commitment that will enable Notre Dame to help mitigate the shortage of mental health professionals by increasing the number of senior psychology faculty, tripling the number of clinical psychology graduate students and enhancing the experiential learning opportunities for undergraduate psychology majors.

The treatment capacity of the Veldman Family Psychology Clinic on Hill Street will significantly grow in the coming years, eventually serving more than 1,500 people in the South Bend community annually through mental health assessment, intervention and prevention services. The growth will significantly reduce the current clinic’s wait list and eventually eliminate the wait list for care.

The funding will also provide world-class equipment not currently available to local researchers and providers.

One of the most notable advancements will be the implementation of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) technology. The equipment, which is atypical for universities without medical schools to own and operate, is a specialized form of MRI used to examine the brain’s functional anatomy.

“The addition of the fMRI machine to our clinical and research operations will greatly improve the speed and capabilities of our faculty to identify and help make an impact on the current mental health crisis,” said Sarah Mustillo, the I.A. O’Shaughnessy Dean of the College of Arts and Letters. “Now, instead of traveling out of the region to use this equipment elsewhere, our faculty will have access to the technology right here in South Bend. This level of access will be a game-changer for our research innovations and patient outcomes.”

The impact of the new clinic will be felt not only in the community and academic circles, but also on campus. With growing collaborations and partnerships among University faculty and administrators, the mental health initiatives are expected to have a significant effect on Notre Dame student mental health care.

On campus, the Division of Student Affairs, under the direction of Vice President Rev. Gerard Olinger, C.S.C., will expand resources to meet the growing mental health care needs of students at an earlier stage, specifically at the University’s Center for Student Support and Care, the University Counseling Center and the McDonald Center for Student Well-Being.

Measurable outcomes anticipated include a decrease in the number of students seeking care for acute or crisis-level needs over the next five years, a designated care and wellness consultant embedded in every college and an increase in the number of students working with care and wellness consultants.

“With mental health standing as one of the defining crises of our times, Notre Dame has a distinct opportunity to transform what holistic mental health care looks like and to serve as a beacon for others involved in this work,” Father Olinger said. “We continue to look for and implement innovative solutions to meet our students where they are in their mental health care journeys, ultimately seeking to implement care at an earlier stage of need.”

Notre Dame’s commitment to solving mental health care issues stems from the University’s identity as a Catholic research institution.

“By caring for the mental health needs of students on campus and advancing psychological training and research, Notre Dame can realize in practice what we are called to do in our mission — be a force for good and a place of service and community,” said John T. McGreevy, the Charles and Jill Fischer Provost.

“This multidisciplinary focus on innovative research and advanced care is just the beginning of how Notre Dame will address the mental health crisis not only on our campus but also nationally.”

Originally published by Notre Dame News at news.nd.edu on February 28, 2024.

“The need for mental health resources has increased exponentially, in our nation, in the local community and on every college campus in the country,” said University President Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C. “Given our mission to be a force for good in the world, Notre Dame has the opportunity to develop new models for the provision of mental health services and undertake groundbreaking research on how to treat mental illnesses, while also enhancing services for our students and helping to meet the overwhelming demand for more mental health resources in our local community. We are deeply grateful to the Veldman family for their support as we seek to bring hope and healing to those struggling with mental illness and build healthier and more compassionate communities.”

The Veldman Family Psychology Clinic will unite the work of Notre Dame’s William J. Shaw Center for Children and Families, the Suicide Prevention Initiative—Research, Intervention, and Training (SPIRIT), and a major new substance use initiative, while expanding the availability of affordable mental health counseling services to residents of the South Bend area.

The University’s strategic framework includes a commitment to addressing the nationwide mental health crisis as part of a new Health and Well-Being Initiative. The new clinic, a key component of that initiative, will significantly enhance the research of faculty in the Department of Psychology and offer immersive training for clinical psychology graduate students, who will be empowered to share pioneering evidence-based mental health practices with communities across the country.

The Veldman family’s gift will fund a new building for the clinic, to be constructed at the site of the existing Psychological Services Center at 501 N. Hill St. in South Bend’s East Bank neighborhood. The facility will create a centralized hub for faculty and student collaboration as well as an easily accessible service-delivery center for South Bend community members to visit and receive care.

Once constructed and fully operational, the Veldman Family Psychology Clinic will significantly increase evidence-based mental health services available to residents of South Bend and the surrounding area. The need for these services was highlighted by recent research by Daniel Tadmon, assistant professor of sociology at Notre Dame, which found that about 70 percent of Americans have better access to psychiatric care than those who live in the South Bend area.

The clinic will increase the number of senior psychology faculty, triple the number of clinical psychology graduate students and triple the experiential learning opportunities for undergraduate psychology majors.

The current counseling capacity of the clinic will double in the coming years, eventually serving more than 1,500 people in the South Bend community annually through mental health assessment, intervention and prevention services. The clinic will also foster partnerships with community organizations to advance access to mental health care throughout the region.

“Mental health is more than an urgent public health priority — it is a moral imperative that Notre Dame is especially well suited to address,” said Sarah Mustillo, the I.A. O’Shaughnessy Dean of the College of Arts and Letters. “That work can and should start right here in South Bend as we care for our community while simultaneously developing new prevention, intervention and treatment practices that will inform innovative care across the nation.”

The expansion also marks an important step forward in a partnership between the academy and the Division of Student Affairs focused on a long-term goal of raising the level of mental health care provided to students.

Through the Veldman family’s support, the clinic will now be home to a significantly expanded presence for SPIRIT, accelerating its comprehensive and innovative work on suicide prevention. Led by co-directors Theodore Beauchaine, the William K. Warren Foundation Professor of Psychology and director of primary prevention, and Brooke Ammerman, an assistant professor of psychology and the Dr. Marsha Linehan Director of Secondary Prevention, SPIRIT pursues groundbreaking research on self-injury, suicide ideation and suicide attempts, and provides prevention services to children, adolescents, adults and families.

The clinic will unite these expanded efforts with Notre Dame’s current strength in trauma-focused research housed at the Shaw Center. Led by director Kristin Valentino, a professor of psychology and the William J. Shaw Center for Children and Families Collegiate Chair, the center advances the well-being of children and families through basic and applied research, improving public understanding of how to improve the lives of children and families, especially those who have experienced trauma.

Born in the mid-1920s, Wilma and Peter Veldman grew up on farms in Holland and lived through the Nazi occupation during World War II. As young immigrants, the couple arrived in South Bend in the early 1950s. They eventually started and operated a variety of automotive-related businesses in South Bend, beginning with a two-bay Standard Oil service station and ending with Tire Rack, an online distributor of automotive and light truck tires and wheels. Over more than 40 years in business, the Edmonds, Joines and Veldman families led Tire Rack to become the largest online tire distributor in the United States. Their faith, family and community were always most important to Peter and Wilma, and their family seeks to honor those values and their parents through this gift.

“Our family sees the great need in our community for better access to mental health care, but we also see the tremendous opportunity to make a difference through supporting Notre Dame’s mental health initiatives,” Tom Veldman said. “This is a moment where we can impact the course of our community by reshaping the trajectory of so many lives, and we hope others will join us in supporting this crucial endeavor.”

Originally published by Josh Weinhold at news.nd.edu on January 09, 2024.

In this episode of Notre Dame Stories, we go deep on a topic featured in the University’s award-winning series, “What Would You Fight For?” In an in-depth conversation, Sarah Mustillo, the I.A. O’Shaughnessy Dean of Notre Dame’s College of Arts and Letters, discusses the bold University initiative around mental health. She talks about her own research into childhood trauma, and how it helps to inform her approach.

In this episode, we also meet Austin Wyman, a Notre Dame doctoral student. Austin has his own personal story of how he became interested in studying quantitative psychology.

Learn about the University’s commitment to combat America’s mental health crisis.

Notre Dame Stories is the official podcast of the University of Notre Dame. It was created by the Office of Public Affairs and Communications.
Host: Jenna Liberto
Executive Producer: Andy Fuller
Producers: Jenna Liberto, Josh Long, Staci Stickovich
Videographers: Zach Dudka, Josh Long, Tony Fuller, Michael Wiens
Music: Alex Mansour

Originally published by Office of Brand Content at al.nd.edu on September 23, 2024.

Notre Dame senior Cassandra Bustillos, a psychology major, is one of more than a dozen graduate and undergraduate psychology students working with Jenny Padilla, an assistant professor of psychology at Notre Dame. Padilla works out of the William J. Shaw Center for Children and Families, studying Latino family relationships, and her research focuses on the family as a context of development and psychological adjustment, primarily in adolescence and young adulthood.

“We’re really trying to leverage the strength of familial bonds to buffer the effects of various adverse experiences on depressive symptoms, risky behaviors, and overall well-being,” Padilla says. “I’m trying to highlight the protective role that family relationships can play, particularly emphasizing the significance of understudied connections like siblings and father-youth relationships.”

Padilla’s research is part of Notre Dame’s historic commitment to fighting a mental health crisis in our country. The University is bringing together a coalition of benefactors, foundations, and other funders who have committed more than $68 million over the past year to develop innovative solutions and expand access to care.

That effort includes the new Veldman Family Psychology Clinic to develop evidence-based solutions in childhood trauma, suicide prevention, and substance abuse. Its work will partner with and build on the Shaw Center’s years of research.

Like others at the Shaw Center, Padilla explores developmental psychology in ways that could potentially lead to positive intervention strategies. The center’s director, Kristin Valentino, has created intervention programs that improve caregiving and developmental outcomes for maltreated children.

“Jenny and I are studying things like, how does discrimination affect mental health?” Valentino says. “What are the risk and protective factors potentially unique to Mexican culture, for example, that may help us understand developmental trajectories towards mental illness or towards resilience?”

Read more about this research in a feature story at nd.edu/stories.

Originally published by Brendan O'Shaughnessy at al.nd.edu on May 02, 2024.