Marshall University Research Corporation

This two-year grant supports Marshall University’s Neuroscience Literacy in Mental Health Project, a neuroscience literacy professional development program for over 500 mental health workers in West Virginia to promote knowledge transfer from basic and applied neuroscientists to professionals and the public they serve. 

Professional associations and literature have provided mental health workers with advanced practice standards and a recommended general training sequence related to neuroscience. However, with limited resources there has yet to be a formal source for these professionals to obtain comprehensive knowledge on neuroscience and how it applies to their practice. Marshall University aims to address this gap by developing a professional development program for mental health workers that provides access to centralized, relevant, and trustworthy content that goes beyond piecemeal continuing education offerings and leads to advanced credentialing.  

Over the course of 12 months, participants engage in monthly free, virtual, interactive webinars where they obtain new knowledge and skills. All participants from the professional development series are added to an online community of practice to help them stay abreast of rapidly changing information and adapt clinical behavior accordingly. The community of practice provides an interactive platform for synchronous and asynchronous peer-to-peer learning that goes beyond traditional continuing education. The knowledge and skill outcomes of the professional development series serve as the foundation for a new microcredential in neuroscience literacy for mental health professionals.  The goal is to increase the ability of mental health workers to make informed decisions about how neuroscience influences their work, as well as have a direct impact on the mental health and well-being of society. 

This grant supports the Dana Foundation objective to facilitate greater understanding and informed decision-making among professionals by supporting new education approaches on neuroscience topics related to their practice.