$79,000 Grant to Provide Mental Health Services for Underserved in Northwest Arkansas

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senators Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor announced that the University of Arkansas will receive a $79,250 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services grant for the department of psychology to train graduate students studying clinical psychology for careers providing mental health services to underserved populations.

The department of psychology is in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences.

Funds will go toward stipends for two clinical psychology students each year for the next three years, who will work with mental health patients at Rogers and Springdale sites of Community Clinic—a medical center for low-income and uninsured people in Northwest Arkansas. Students will work at Community Clinic centers for one year and focus on research during the other year of the program.

The new clinical psychology program aims to increase the number of psychologists who provide mental health services to low-income, rural, Hispanic and Marshallese residents in Washington and Benton counties.

“We are honored to be awarded this grant. It’s a great opportunity for the university and for the state of Arkansas,” said Ana Bridges, assistant professor of psychology in Fulbright College. “We will be training the next generation of psychologists to do things differently—to make their services accessible to underserved communities. It will mean getting out of their offices and moving into primary health care settings. It will mean joining forces with doctors, nurses and other health care providers to build a complete health care team.”