2024 Jan DRISS - Best of Both Worlds: A CA Partnership Addressing Mental Health & Incarceration

Seminar Full Title: "Best of Both Worlds": A Community-Academic Partnership Addressing Mental Health and Incarceration

Dissemination Research and Implementation Science Seminar (DRISS) | University of Wisconsin - Madison | January 2024

DRISS is an interactive, monthly lunchtime seminar (via Zoom) focused on learning about the growing science of dissemination and implementation research and practice!

Seminar Description:
For the past three years, Aaron and Mike have worked together to identify barriers and opportunities for improving mental health and well-being among currently and formerly incarcerated individuals. This effort has been centered around the input of a community advisory board composed of individuals with lived experience of incarceration. In this seminar, Aaron and Mike discuss the development of this partnership, lessons learned, ongoing collaborative research projects, and future opportunities for UW-Madison to play a more substantial role in addressing health inequities in the community.

Speakers:
Michael Koenigs, PhD, is Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The goal of Dr. Koenigs’s research is to improve mental healthcare and promote resilience for individuals who are currently or formerly incarcerated. He has a longstanding collaboration with the State of Wisconsin Department of Corrections that allows him to work with people currently incarcerated in state prisons. He also works with formerly incarcerated people in our community. His research approach includes stakeholder engagement, clinical trials, as well as basic studies on psychological and neurobiological functions relevant for emotion and decision-making.

Aaron Hicks is the Reentry Coordinator for the Nehemiah Center for Urban Leadership Development, a Madison-area community organization focused on post-incarceration reentry and neighborhood economic development. He started working with Jerome Dillard and Voices Beyond Bars on return from incarceration back into the community, which brought the very work that he was doing while incarcerated now into the community. This was also his introduction to Nehemiah and meeting Pastor Alex Gee, who had started his own men’s group, called Man Up. Aaron now facilitates the Man Up Group with his amazing ability to connect with people and help them work through their hurts and pains.