Hinckley Chair Annual Report

Internships

Alyssa Black
Master of Social Work
Healthier You Counseling Center
I have been working at a private mental health practice called Healthier You. My main responsibility is to see and work with clients.

This experience has affected me personally in a way that I hope translates to all parts of my life. Within the first few weeks of my internship, one thing I noticed was how my sessions made me realize how amazing people are. I often thought about how each of my clients, though in very different situations, were all trying their best to navigate hard challenges. At times I could picture standing behind someone like my client in the grocery store and having no idea they were going through what they were going through. This has made me want to become a more understanding and kind person regardless of how well I know someone.

The internship has also helped me realize my academic goals. Between sessions, I have been able to read some clinical books, manuals, and other resources to expand my current knowledge. This, in tandem with conversations with my supervisor, has helped me identify areas where I want to learn more. In terms of professional pursuits, working at my internship has set the bar for what I want to find in future workplaces. I really value having been able to see different aspects of the workplace and decide which aspects I want to find in a future job.

Ashley Bresee
Master of Social Work
Alpine School District
My internship duties are to provide therapy—whether group or individual—to children and adolescents in the district. Another role I provide is giving resources to students and their families. Many resources are available through the school district, and I help find other resources that are available in the community.

This internship has affected the way I view children and adolescents. When working with my coworkers the mindset seems to be to fix or to help the child. Yet, I have learned that children and adolescents are more resilient than they are given credit for.

In my internship my clients are not only the student, but the parents and the staff as well. Therefore, when it comes to intervention, we must all be on the same page as a team to reach a common goal. However, when doing this at times they make it seem like the student is a problem to be solved. For instance, a student may be having several behavior problems during school and staff wants it to be fixed. Yet, as the social worker my role is to advocate for my client. Sometimes a student’s behaviors is due to trauma reactions that have not been resolved. Therefore, I have learned the importance of advocating for my client and how the work I do does make a difference in my client’s life.

Jamie Call
Master of Social Work
The Green House Center for Growth and Learning
At my internship, I conducted therapy sessions with my clients, who are children and teens in the community. When working with these clients, I used some talk therapy and a lot of play and art therapy since talking directly about struggles can be more difficult. I also attended collaboration meetings with the other staff to discuss client growth and to get advice on how to better help my clients, especially if I feel stuck.

I have learned so much personally from this experience—more about families and attachment, which has changed how I interact with my own family members for the better, and how to assume more positive things about other people. I have also been touched as I watched clients and their parents do incredible healing work. I’ve been inspired by the intuition of children to find healing through play, and I have come to trust more my own intuitive drive for personal healing. I’ve been spiritually strengthened because learning about healthy, loving parenting helps me feel closer to my Heavenly Parents and their love.

Completing this internship has given me a space to practice the skills I’m learning at school. The practice then deepens my learning at school. It has taught me so much about expressive therapy, which really aligns with the kind of therapist I want to be professionally.

Abbey Chapple
Master of Social Work
Family Haven
I have been at my internship with Family Haven for the last eight months and it has been such a great experience. This non-profit clinic’s mission is the treatment and prevention of child abuse.

My responsibilities include doing intake evaluations, diagnosing and making treatment plans, and also providing therapy for children, adults, and their families. I felt really out of my element at the beginning and inadequate for the task. I spent time watching videos, doing online courses, reading books on child development, parenting, trauma, and other topics to feel like I could practice evidence-based interventions with my clients. I also realized that just starting to work with my clients would be great instruction as well. Now, I feel so much more capable and knowledgeable when it comes to helping children and adults work through behavioral and psychological problems. I have learned a lot in just a few short months.

This internship has been very instructional on how to work with low-income populations and with a wide range of mental illnesses. I was able to see so many issues and understand how they affect different groups of people. I was also able to make connections with other therapists to build my professional network. I am very grateful for the financial support from this scholarship that allowed me to focus on my learning here.

Paul Robert Coyne
Master of Social Work
BYU Counseling and Psychological Services
My experiences at CAPS have been sufficiently varied to allow me to gain a great deal of exposure to the types of issues that college-aged adults are dealing with. This has afforded me an opportunity to experiment with what approaches I can take as a clinician that will be most helpful to the clients I see.

I have been surprised by the impact of the internship on my day-to-day life. I recognized very quickly that I will need to start some sustainable self-care practices so I am better positioned to carry the burden of holding space for my clients.

One other unexpected and difficult experience I have had relates to the change in the amount of time I spend at home. For the majority of the last 15 years I have been a stay-at-home parent to my five children. Being out of the home as much as this internship has required has been an interesting conflict to navigate as I genuinely love the internship at CAPS and am excited for the opportunities it will open up for my future, yet I also feel a sense of mourning for the loss of how things used to be.

I have felt a great deal of growth since starting this internship and feel very grateful for the supervisors I have spent time with, for their guidance and for the other therapists who have imparted some of their wisdom and knowledge on me. I feel fortunate that every single day in this internship I have been able to learn and grow as an individual and as a therapist.

Sophia Dimmick
Master of Social Work
Alpine Pediatrics
I’ve been interning as a behavioral therapist and my major responsibilities are meeting with parents and children for therapy and helping them with anything from anger outbursts and misbehavior in school to anxiety and depression. I check in with the parents and help them with behavioral parenting strategies while assisting the kids and teens to change their thought process, learn to self-soothe, and regulate their emotions.

This has helped me learn a lot more about cognitive behavioral therapy and realize that I enjoy working with parents and children, specifically teens. This has helped me personally to become more competent as a therapist and I have gained more confidence in my ability to use the skills I have learned in school. I also have learned more about coordinating with parents and advocating for the children.

I had not had much experience with family therapy before and although my internship is not traditional family therapy since it focuses on the kids, there has been a lot I could learn and apply related to family therapy. I also have gained more confidence in advising on parenting skills which is something that I could see being helpful with anyone who is a parent in my future career. Overall, I think I have become a much more capable therapist and have gained experience that will be relevant to my career.

Rachel Parkinson Hansen
Master of Social Work
Mountain View Family Therapy
My primary major responsibility during this internship was to provide clinical therapeutic services to clients to improve their functioning and increase their mental well-being.

Personally, this experience was extremely altering in the best way possible. I learned so much about my struggles and shortcomings that were apparent and ways to cope with them to provide an unbiased, professional, ethical therapeutic session for my clients. I also learned to view my clients with basic unconditional positive regard as I support them in an unbiased, impartial, and unopinionated way to best help them reach their goals and improve functioning.

One of the most amazing things was how much grace and love our Savior Jesus Christ has for all of his children. I made sure that my whole internship I was striving to approach all of my clients with the same love and acceptance that our Savior affords each of us. It was a true honor and a sacred experience that my clients trusted me enough to share their struggles in hopes of healing.

As I move forward the MSW program, I realize that I should be focusing far less on grades and much more on content that will be applicable to future clients I may have. I think this internship was extremely rewarding for me in understanding what a profound difference I can make in the lives of my clients which confirms that choosing this career path was the right choice for me.

Joanna Harmon
Master of Social Work
ScenicView Academy
I have been part of the clinical team at ScenicView and offer individual and couples therapy, as well as teach emotion regulation and healthy sexuality classes. I also spend time documenting therapy sessions and classes, attending clinical and staff meetings, helping with student activities, and preparing for lessons and therapy sessions.

During this internship, I have improved my ability to engage, assess, and intervene with individuals in a therapeutic setting. I’ve learned how to build relationships with clients and students, and I’ve learned how to pivot when things aren’t working. I’ve learned to rely on my supervisor and colleagues for support in working with challenging cases. I’ve also learned more technical skills, like how to write a good note that would hold up to scrutiny by insurance companies and attorneys. I’ve learned how to work with a variety of staff and students in a setting where the majority of people are neurodiverse, and I’ve learned that a great work environment is inclusive, supportive, and empowering.

Working with neurodiverse adults is something that I want to continue doing, and the training and experience I now have gives me a great foundation upon which I can continue to build. I have also created relationships with many professionals at Scenic View that I hope will be part of my growing professional network. I look forward to working with them in the field throughout the years, in whatever form that takes.

Kelsie Heath
Master of Social Work
Development Counseling Services
I interned as a development counselor and met with and assisted individuals in the Deseret Industries Ready-for-Work program. This is a preparation program that helps individuals facing barriers to employment work toward gainful employment.

I was on a multidisciplinary team and personally met with approximately 20 associates on a regular basis to help them reach their goals. I also assisted in crisis situations as many of my clients faced mental health challenges,and needed additional support in the workplace. Being able to work with such a wide variety of people that are facing various challenges opened my eyes to individual needs and how important it is to be creative in offering mental health counseling and casework assistance. I loved being able to combine my individual skills with the therapeutic modalities that I have learned to assist those on my caseload in a way that helps them take positive steps forward. I have always loved art, and through my internship I was reminded that therapy is another form of art.

I expanded my knowledge as I researched how to help each client I worked with. I learned how to build good working relationships with those on my clients’ multidisciplinary team and see the importance of working with a multidisciplinary team. This is something that I want to continue to utilize in my future practice whenever possible.

Mei-En Huang
Master of Social Work
BYU Counseling and Psychological Services
I am doing my second internship for the Marriott School through BYU CAPS. I provided individual therapy to (prospective) business students with mental health issues, including anxiety, depression, trauma, perfectionism, sexual concerns, and issues with family or other relationships. I have participated in some mental health outreach to raise awareness. In addition, I attended treatment team meetings and supervision each week to consult with and learn from other clinicians.

The clients I work with are very motivated and responsible individuals and are willing to invest time and energy in therapy. I have become familiar with interventions, including value sorting, inner-child work, IFS, CBT, and trauma work. I’ve also become ART trained recently, which gives me another effective tool to help clients with trauma or anxiety.

This internship has helped me integrate classroom knowledge into the clinical field and deepen my assessment, intervention, and evaluation skills. Furthermore, it has laid the foundation for my professional pursuits in providing trauma-informed therapy and sex therapy as a clinical social worker.

Jacy Jean Larson
Master of Social Work
Orange Street Community Corrections Center
My main responsibility as a therapist intern is to work with the residents of Orange Street CCC in Salt Lake City, where women with substance use issues come for treatment after being released from prison. I conduct intake assessments, meet with clients for individual therapy sessions, collaborate with other professionals, and facilitate groups. My overall goal is to support these women as they strive to recover from addiction and reintegrate into society.

I feel very blessed for this opportunity. My passion for social work grew from a desire to advocate for others, and this internship allows me to support clients who are in desperate need of an advocate. There is a lot of systemic injustice in the criminal justice system. Working in this environment can be discouraging, but it also has shown me the good that exists in the most unlikely places. I’ve met many wonderful people who are trying to make a difference in the world.

I know the things I’ve learned will be invaluable as I transition from student to professional. As someone interested in mezzo- and macro-level work, I believe that an understanding of the communities and systems I’m trying to improve is vital. The hands-on work of my internship has laid that foundational understanding.

Chrisever Natalia
Master of Social Work
Wasatch Behavioral Health
I’m presently working with substance use disorder at Wasatch Behavioral Health. Major responsibilities in this organization include leading the process group, conducting individual sessions with male clients as well as youth aged 14–18, and providing family therapy as needed.

Insecurities and shyness are traits that I have. In spite of this, working with these two different populations has caused me to step out of my comfort zone. This experience helped me understand my potential as a future clinician and prepared me to compete and achieve in the real world. However, I’ve realized my limitations and the areas in which I lack confidence.

Through interactions with clients, I can refine my skills and learn how to establish rapport and build therapeutic relationships. As a student, I am given the opportunity to work with social workers and therapists who are professionals. The program allows me to gain hands-on experience, explore different practices, and network with people who share my passion for making a positive impact on society.

With the help of this internship, I am confident that I will be able to acquire invaluable skills that will propel me toward achieving my professional goals of creating meaningful change within communities and helping those who need it most.

Michaela Palensky
Master of Social Work
Intermountain Health Employee Assistance Program
The main responsibility of my internship is to provide brief, short-term therapy to Intermountain Health employees and other contracted agencies, their spouses, and dependents under six. I learned so much during my internship.

One of the main things I learned was how to work with children. Up until this experience, I had never worked with kids, so I was nervous going into it. I learned modalities and techniques that are beneficial to helping kids as well as how to interact with them in a therapeutic manner. Though working with children isn’t something I see in my future, it has been great to have the opportunity to learn.

Another thing I learned is how to effectively provide therapy virtually. Most of my sessions were done on a virtual platform due to many of the clients working during typical working hours. This was an adjustment for me, but I have been able to see that effective therapy doesn’t always have to happen in person.

This internship helped me realize my academic goals because it has deepened my in-class learning experience. I have been able to see the benefits of many of the assignments and have been able to apply them as I am learning them. It has helped me to see the importance of understanding the things I am learning in class because I know I will be using them in the future.

Ashton Seely
Master of Social Work
Central Utah Counseling Center
During my internship, I had several major responsibilities. One of the primary tasks was facilitating various groups that focused on mental health for residents under commitment. Additionally, I conducted groups addressing substance abuse, collaborated with parole officers and worked with individuals ranging from youth to adults.

This experience has personally affected me by allowing me to give back to a community that has given me so much. I have been truly blessed to work within the community where I live and grew up. I am also working toward helping those in need and providing a space in which they feel safe to share and process things. I learned a great deal about how I could better serve the community, using outside-the-box thinking to explore options and resources to help these families.

This internship helped me realize the significant role I can play in helping those within my community. It has also contributed to my progress toward my professional goal of potentially being hired at my current internship. Furthermore, it has provided me with the opportunity to assess if returning to my community as a therapist is something I should pursue after completing my program.

Brynlee Shults
Master of Social Work
Family Services
I received generous funds from the Marjorie Pay Hinckley endowment to help cover the costs of my tuition at the start of this internship and I am so immensely grateful for the financial aid. It helped me in a lot of ways to become a better student and future therapist. My family and I have been very blessed!

I am a student therapist at Family Services. I see eight to ten clients a week for mental health therapy. Some of my specific duties include assessing clients and forming treatment plans, diagnosing mental health problems, implementing research-based treatment interventions, and consulting with ecclesiastical leaders on individual cases. I also help facilitate marriage and pornography treatment groups once a week

This internship experience has been an amazing growth opportunity for me. After just four months with this agency, I have a much greater sense of compassion and empathy. Being exposed to a diverse range of human experiences, challenges, and resilience every day of my internship has felt sacred in many ways. My mind is continuously being opened and broadened to the love that our Heavenly Father has for all his children, and the various ways he helps each individual through life. I feel my spirituality and faith continue to grow immensely due to my internship experience and have a growing passion for trauma work and the role of spirituality in therapy.

Rachel Vance
Master of Social Work
Utah State Hospital, Forensic Unit
My major responsibilities in the internship were to be a therapist for men who were deemed not competent to proceed in trial due to mental illness. I was assigned to six different men and met with them individually each week, created weekly and monthly reports, and attended court with them.

The internship affected me personally in many ways. It has been such a wonderful experience to work with men with severe cases of psychosis and mental illness and see so much humanity, friendliness, and courage. Each individual has experienced so much trauma and hardship. The fact that they are functioning at the capacity they are is a signal of resilience. I will be forever grateful for how this internship has humbled me, how it has helped me expand my knowledge and heart, and how it has allowed me see these illnesses in such a different light than when I first arrived.

This internship has allowed me see the dialects of the things that we speak about in class. It has helped me to increase my competencies in the social work profession and has given me a foundation and a confidence in the field. Being able to work with this population has given me a basis to see that even with the most severe patients, I am able to love and connect with them, be able to help them within a therapeutic approach, and be able to make a difference if I am committed to receiving feedback, educating myself, and learning from my clients.

Sarah Vang
Master of Social Work
Aspire Academy
Aspire Academy is a residential treatment center associated with Wasatch Behavioral Health. For my internship I provided individual and group therapy each week.

The experience has affected me in ways I would have never imagined. I learned to deeply care for and love people who I would have usually had a hard time with. I have grown in my clinical skills and have learned many new techniques. I have learned how to build relationships with teenagers and how to navigate challenges. In addition, I have learned how to tap into my creative side and come up with new ideas and ways to work with individual clients.

This internship has helped me want to succeed and become a social worker who can make a difference in the lives of the people I will meet. The clients at Aspire sometimes come from troubled homes with no support and have gone through intense trauma. I want to be a social worker who can support them and help them overcome their struggles. I have seen it make a difference in my clients’ lives whether they realize it or not. I want to be able to bring what I have learned from my time at Aspire and continue to develop my skills. This internship has helped me to know what I do know and what I still need to learn. It has also helped me to better my knowledge in working with teenagers and people with trauma.

Olivia Ahmu
Political Science
International Rescue Committee
My internship in the Washington Seminar program was an important opportunity for me to get hands-on work experience with a non-profit organization focused on refugee aid and advocacy. I am extremely interested in working in the non-profit sector and assisting refugees in the difficult process of resettling in the United States.

Through my internship, I was able to interact face-to-face with refugee clients and assist them in reducing barriers that would prevent them from obtaining employment. My understanding of the refugee resettlement process increased exponentially and I learned how to build strong relationships with others, as well as how to work effectively in a team environment. My daily work was very busy but very rewarding. I feel more prepared and confident to start a career in non-profit humanitarian work because of the experience I had this summer.

I hope to pursue a masters degree in public administration with an emphasis on non-profit management. I know my internship will help boost my experience and credibility as I apply to different graduate programs. The professional and academic skills and knowledge I have developed both through my internship work and through the Washington Seminar classes will play a major part in helping me achieve my future goals. I am very grateful for this funding award as it enabled me to participate in this program and have such an invaluable experience.

Karina Beus
Physical Education Teaching
Springville High School
I am graduating with a degree in physical education teaching and a minor in history teaching—thanks to your scholarship. I cannot thank you enough for the financial support you have so graciously extended to me during my student teaching semester. I had the opportunity to teach physical education and US history.

This internship made a large impact on my professional goals. I was able to learn from incredible mentor teachers, practice my teaching skills, and grow as a teacher. I have set new goals for myself as a professional educator surrounding my relationship with students, assessments, and the way I teach my content.

Through this experience, I now better understand my strengths as a teacher, as well as the areas I can continue to grow in. I made professional relationships with teachers and administration that will help give me credibility as I begin the job search next school year. The internship helped me achieve my academic goals, as it gave me the necessary experience to gain a teaching license and graduate with an education degree.

Overall, the financial support given helped to support my family and I through a semester where I was unable to work full-time. I can now begin a full-time teaching profession to support my family.

Anya Christensen
Family Studies
Division of Child and Family Services
I completed an internship on the Transition to Adult Living (TAL) team and learned how to apply many of the things that I have learned about in my classes. At BYU, I learned about the core values of social work. Spending time with DCFS allowed me to see how individual caseworkers can develop their own unique styles of practice. In the classroom, the best course of action often seems clear, but in real life solutions are messy and difficult.

I am grateful for the opportunities I had to watch caseworkers navigate these complex situations. As I continue my academic career, I hope that I will be able to connect the things that I learned here to my schoolwork and use these experiences to add depth to my understanding of what I learn.

It was an incredible educational experience and helped me gain new perspectives for my future career. From talking to the caseworkers, I learned more about the qualities a potential caseworker needs to have. Many caseworkers have the opportunity to work on several different teams, and I am excited by the idea that I could have flexibility to change what I do after a few years. This knowledge will help me remain focused in my own education and can guide me in my personal and professional development.

Mae Huntsman
Family Studies
Make-A-Wish Utah
This internship gave me my first experience in the non-profit field and has served as an excellent starting place in my professional pursuits.

During my internship, I had the opportunity to work with the development team. The development team at Make-A-Wish is responsible for raising the funds that make wish-granting possible. I learned how to manage relationships with corporations and businesses professionally and produce stewardship gifts of all kinds for them. This, among many other lessons I have learned over the course of my internship, will help me in my future professional pursuits.

This internship allowed me to realize my academic goals because it gave me more direction and purpose in my pursuits. Due to my recent decision not to immediately pursue a master’s degree, I was unsure what my professional future would look like. Having this experience in the world of non-profit allowed me to want to continue dow this path.

Due to my time as an intern, I have been offered a full-time position at Make-A-Wish Utah and plan to work there after graduation. I feel immensely grateful for my internship opportunity and for this grant because it has allowed me to start my career doing something I love.

Dayna Janowski
Political Science
Lifting Hands International
Thank you so much for your generous donation that helped me complete my education here at Brigham Young University. It means the world to me to have generous donors who give from the kindness of their hearts. It’s wonderful people like you who help make the world better!

I hope to pursue a career in Immigration and Refugee work. My mother is a Canadian and I grew up hearing my parents struggle with visas and rules involving the immigration system. I want to do my part to make it better! My heart is drawn to refugees and helping them make America their new home.

Because of this internship I have been able to work with many refugees and my love for them has grown so I hope to continue volunteering with nonprofits frequently. I enjoy swimming, family, and friends, cooking, being outside, and doing my family history. I’m the first woman on my mother’s side to gain a bachelor’s degree, and I look forward to encouraging my kids to pursue something they love.

This sweet donation will help me finish up school so that I can be prepared to go into the workforce and stay debt-free, which I’m very grateful for. Thank you again for your thoughtfulness.

Amy Kurtzweil
Political Science
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell
This past semester I participated in the Washington Seminar program as I completed my internship with Sen. McConnell’s office. Earlier in the year, I interned in the Utah State Senate.

I was assigned to two policy teams on top of my administrative work. I was able to work with the Grants and Appropriations team as well as the Foreign Policy/Military Affairs team. This experience showed me how we work on a federal level to help create and pass policies, and gain funding for our state. I also was able to witness how the federal government works together to pass policies as a whole. I watched the fight over funding and appropriations for the next fiscal year, which made it really cool to be a part of our grants and appropriations team. I also was able to get unique insight on the conflicts in Ukraine and Israel, and learn from our staffers about military policy both within our state and abroad.

I want to continue working with policy either on the state or federal side. It’s incredibly important to understand the policy process, chain of command, and inner workings of both the federal and state governments. Being in Washington and being able to have this internship not only fulfilled a lifelong dream of mine, but it taught me so much more about myself and what I want to do with my career.

Janessa Meiners
Family History
Church History Department, Europe Central Area
The first part of my training was with the Church History Library in Salt Lake City, and the second part of training, as well as the whole of the internship, was with the Europe Central Area office based in Frankfurt, Germany. This was a very valuable experience, as we received training and real-world experience with preparing for, performing, and recording oral histories, digitizing records and organizing the digital files, maintaining archives and keeping an inventory, and cataloging our acquisitions.

We were given opportunities to practice beneficial skills of problem-solving, group work, planning, and professionalism. It gave us many chances to show that we could be given responsibility and then be reliable, trustworthy, diligent, courteous, proactive, and efficient. We learned how to work on large projects in groups, and with this, learned how to problem-solve together, communicate, plan, refigure, and complete a task.

Although the internship was focused on Church history, I learned many valuable skills crucial to family history research, such as digitization, oral history, and record preservation. Additionally, this internship will open up more possibilities for working abroad, as I created meaningful connections with people and organizations around the world. I am very grateful for all that I learned, and all the ways I’ve grown. Thank you so much for this grant. I could not have had this experience without it.

Makenzie Minaker
Family Studies
The Family Academy
In this internship I have learned so much about myself and my future career goals. I wanted to go into social work but felt very unprepared before this internship. I wasn’t sure if I still wanted to get my master’s degree or not because I wasn’t sure if I could succeed in this career.

During my internship I have grown not just as an individual but also as a future social worker. I have learned how to be assertive, confident, and how to show empathy but still be professional. I have learned how to work with difficult parents and how to work with the court. I have learned how to pay very close attention to even small details.

All of these traits will help me tremendously in my future career as a social worker. I grew a whole new level of love for this field that I would never have been able to if not for this opportunity. I will forever be grateful for this internship opportunity because it made me realize that I do need to get a master’s degree and I do have an incredible passion for this line of work. I want to be able to help as many people as possible and I can do that with this career. This internship helped me learn what I want to do with my future, and I loved every second of it.

Kinnedy Robertson
Family Studies
Senator Mike Lee
My name is Kinnedy Robertson Poyfair. My dad is in the military, so my hometown is an undefined answer. My parents live in Virginia right now, and I live in Provo as I attend BYU. I am majoring in Family Studies, and I absolutely love the work I do in this major.

I spent this summer up in Washington DC, in our nation’s capitol. I interned for Utah Senator Mike Lee for the Spring and Summer semester (May- August) 2023 and have had a blast. The purpose of this internship was to see the kind of work that can be done for families on the legislative level.

This internship has been so enriching. My office assigned me to work with our HELP policy team which works with any social issues regarding Healthcare, Education, Labor, and Pension. I was able to help write policy, listen to the senators and congressmen discuss different solutions to different issues our country faced. I saw the issues that matter, I saw where there is a need, and I saw exactly how to solve other issue in some more creative ways. I was able to directly talk with people, take their options and concerns, I was able to talk with my legislative team and learn how to research every solution and choose which one would be the most impactful but easiest to implement.

Faculty Awards

Mentoring & Research Grants

Melissa Alcaraz
Social Work
My research project, the Young Adults’ Prospective Tied Migration study, has been generously supported by funds from the Marjorie Pay Hinckley endowment.

In this study, I use in-depth, semi-structured interviews with young adults to study what I term “prospective tied migration”—the ideals young people have about how they will make decisions with their partners about how, when, and if to migrate. I also look at how gender roles are or are not reflected in this process.

Young adults are also asked about their family, work, and education goals. Thus far, the Hinckley grant has supported the project in various ways. To date, seven students have been hired as research assistants on this project. Their responsibilities have ranged from coding of qualitative interviews to data collection itself. These experiences have helped students be competitive graduate school applicants and five of these students have been accepted to or are currently enrolled in competitive graduate programs in various fields: sociology, human development and family studies, social work, and public health.

Funds have also been used to compensate research participants for their time and has also paid for professional transcription of interviews.

To date, we have interviewed 52 young adults and are well on our way to our goal of interviewing at least 75 young adults. Students have used the data collected from this project to conduct their own projects and present their work at research conferences. I am also working on several manuscripts with students as co-authors on this work.

Lastly, later this year, I will use funds to take students to an academic research conference where they will present work from this study. The Hinckley endowment has made these experiences possible and has left a lasting impact on students.

Kara Duraccio
Psychology

The majority of adolescents are not receiving sufficient sleep, resulting in increased risk for developing mental health disorders and attempting suicide. Furthermore, parents who care for adolescents with sleep problems and mental health disorders experience decreased overall well-being and family dysfunction. To help face these challenges, we received support from the Marjorie Pay Hinckley Award study to study how a new transdiagnostic adolescent sleep intervention 1) improves adolescent sleep outcomes, 2) improves adolescent mental health, and 3) impacts parental mental health and well-being.

Thus far, we have recruited seventeen adolescents who currently experience sleep 17 through the Transdiagnostic Intervention for Sleep and Circadian Dysfunction, a six-week intervention that has demonstrated preliminary effectiveness of improving sleep problems in adolescents. We plan to recruit at least 10 more adolescents this semester, after which we will begin to examine preliminary outcomes, including adolescent sleep outcomes (i.e., waist-worn actigraphy to assess for total sleep time, dim-light melatonin onset to assess for circadian alignment, self-report measures of perceptions of sleep), adolescent mental health outcomes (i.e., self-report measures of depression, anxiety, stress, and suicidal ideation), and parental mental health and wellbeing (i.e., parent-report measures of stress, self-efficacy, well-being, and mental health).

Thus far, I have been able to fund six undergraduate students to participate in this research project and involve ~12 other undergraduate students in various capacities. Specifically, they have helped in recruitment, material organization, consenting families into the research study, preparing accelerometer data, keeping regular contact with the families, and staffing study appointments. This summer and fall, we plan to have ~10 students (paid and unpaid) help clean and analyze the data and present it at national sleep conferences in 2025.

Executing this study has been so meaningful! This study has the potential to not only address two of the three goals of the endowed chair (both methods to understand and strengthen family well-being and researching intervention strategies related to the challenges of parenting) but also the ever-increasing rise of mental health and sleep disorders present in adolescence.

By testing the feasibility of a brief, low-cost sleep intervention at improving not only adolescent sleep outcomes but also adolescent and family mental health outcomes, we can provide justification for deeper exploration of this project using more rigorous methods (i.e., randomized control clinical trial). Ultimately, this line of research has the potential to foster strong adolescent sleep health, improve the mental functioning of adolescents, and help families flourish.

Pre-CFS Early Career Award (2021-2023)

Sherinah Saasa
Social Work

Overview: This past year I have been working on a research project involving two clinical trials in Zambia, sub-Saharan Africa. This was made possible using grant funding from the Marjorie Pay Hinckley endowment. Below are the project background, aims and main findings.,

Social Problem: About one in seven children in sub-Saharan Africa faces significant psychological challenges, however access to mental health services for children is limited. In addition, due to various constraints, fewer students in sub-Saharan Africa attain minimum math and reading proficiency. Zambia, for instance, reported that only an estimated 5% of 15-year-old children reached reading proficiency in 2017. About half of Zambia’s population is under the age of 15, with 54% of the nation’s population living under the poverty line. Thus, youth education and emotional health is critical for the nation’s development.

Project Aim: This study included two clinical trials with the following aims: (1) assess the effectiveness of a 12-session mental health intervention program in reducing anxiety and depression symptoms among low-income children in Zambia; (2) assess the effectiveness of a 12-sesssion after-school reading assistance program on the reading proficiency of disadvantaged children with poor reading levels in Zambia.

Sample: Data was collected at four time points between July 2022–March 2023 from fifth-grade students in four urban schools in Lusaka, Zambia (N=140). We also assessed parental and teacher perspectives on the children’s outcomes.

Key Findings:

• Both our treatment and waitlist control groups experienced statistically significant improvements in reading comprehension and proficiency by the three-month follow-up.

• The mental health treatment group showed a reduction in anxiety symptoms between post-treatment and three-month follow-up, but not depression symptoms.

• The mental health waitlist control group experienced a reduction in both anxiety and depression symptoms between post-treatment and three-month follow-up.

Student Involvement: I had four BYU undergraduate students working with me on this project. Three of these presented some of the findings at an International Conference in Las Vegas in May 2023, and two of the students currently have an accepted abstract for presentation at an international conference in South Korea in May 2024.

Future Work: A new project is currently being designed to develop a culturally adapted mental health intervention to build on these findings following limitations caused by the Western-based treatment models that were used.

Early Career Award (2021-2023)

Stacey Shaw
Social Work

This research grant is being used to develop and test a mental health intervention with refugee women in Turkey. The project is being conducted in collaboration with ASAM, a well-established service organization in Turkey that changed its name from “Association for Solidarity with Asylum Seekers and Migrants” to “Association for Social Development and Aid Mobilization” in 2023. The five-session mental health group model uses a culturally adapted cognitive behavioral therapy approach with a focus on mindfulness, body awareness, and emotion regulation and will be implemented through a randomized clinical trial with young adult women in multiple parts of the country.

In 2023, we built upon project development and pilot phases of year one to recruit potential participants across five sites in Turkey. Early in 2023, we recruited a total of 30 participants in Adana, 22 in Izmir, 24 in Gaziantep, 27 in Ankara, and a smaller number (9) in Istanbul.

As we prepared to start the first groups in four sites, a devastating earthquake occurred on Feb. 6 in southern Turkey, which affected project participants, ASAM staff, and the entire service landscape in the region. In the following weeks we paused the project, reaching out to screened participants to check on their well-being and indicate that the project would be paused in light of country’s shift to disaster response.

In the spring of 2023, we developed a secondary project, implementing the group intervention with female Turkish earthquake survivors living temporarily in container cities in two new locations highly affected by the earthquake. We adapted the group manual and project procedures, secured IRB approval, and implemented the intervention with three groups during 2023. The earthquake response intervention was not funded from this grant specified for the refugee-focused project, but is built upon that project’s approach and foundation.

In 2024, we will complete the earthquake response project, with one final group and follow-up assessments. We will also re-engage with Syrian participants. Beginning in February, we will re-establish the refugee-focused research team across each site, reach out to originally recruited participants, conduct additional recruitment, and implement the groups. Data analysis and dissemination will continue through 2025.

During 2023, three undergraduate students and three MSW students assisted primarily with developing and testing consent forms and surveys in Qualtrics, in multiple languages. Students also assisted with literature search and development of annotated bibliographies. Involvement in this project has helped enhance student understanding of refugee issues and international research.

Associate Professor Award

Ben Gibbs

Sociology

The funding I have received from the Marjorie Pay Hinckley endowment has been instrumental in bringing the research experience to life for students who otherwise wouldn’t have received this kind of opportunity.

This past year, I have focused my mentoring on applied work that is local. Working with the Office of First-Year Experience at BYU, I employed four students to help create the Second Annual First-Generation College Student graduation commemoration. My student employees, along with my capstone students, helped the Office of First-Year Experience conduct focus groups of first-generation college students on campus and create research posters for the Mentored Student Research Conference last April.

Through generous donations in the college, I was able to take eight first-generation college students to the BYU London Centre program in Fall 2023. These students, along with others from the program, conducted interviews about the experiences of first-generation college students at both Oxford and Cambridge universities.

This semester, Winter 2024, we are analyzing our findings and will present poster of our results at the Mentored Student Research Conference in April.

I am immensely grateful for support in these mentoring efforts and I am confident that the students involved have expanded their academic training and have felt closer to the mission of this great university.