Dr. Rhonda M. Zingraff, Director
Phone: (540) 568-2705 Email: zingrarm@jmu.edu
Location: Health and Behavioral Studies Building, Room 5051B Website: http://www.iihhs.jmu.edu
Mission
The Institute engages students in career preparation by promoting scholarship, providing interprofessional learning experiences, and connecting our campus with communities through innovative programs that advance quality of life.
The following centers, programs and activities connect our campus with communities while advancing scholarship and achieving exceptional learning experiences.
Alvin V. Baird Attention and Learning Disabilities Center
Director: Dr. Trevor Stokes, stokestf@jmu.edu
The mission of the Alvin V. Baird Attention and Learning Disabilities Center is to develop and promote evidence-based interventions for children and adolescents with attention and learning challenges, while educating families, teachers, students and professionals about best practices for their assessment and treatment. Attention and learning factors are present across a range of developmental and psychological disorders, which are the focus of activities at the Baird Center. These include: attention deficit hyperactivity disorders, autism and pervasive developmental disorders, disruptive behavior disorders, mood disorders and psychological factors related to medical conditions.
Blue Ridge Area Health Education Center
Director: Deb Stranges, strangda@jmu.edu
The Blue Ridge Area Health Education Center (AHEC) at JMU strives to improve the health of communities through education, collaboration and cooperation. It focuses on the health care needs of vulnerable populations. The AHEC fosters partnerships that utilize academic and community resources and directs these resources to health and human service gaps that exist within communities. The AHEC program has been a traditional link between academic health and human services programs and communities, utilizing student, faculty and other academic resources to the benefit of the communities.
Campus Suicide Prevention Center of Virginia
Director: Dr. Jane Wiggins, wigginjr@jmu.edu
The goal of the Campus Suicide Prevention Center of Virginia is to reduce risk for suicide on Virginia’s college and university campuses. Specifically, this program supports the individuals and teams on each campus as they work to build the infrastructure necessary to promote mental health for all students, identify and support those with mental health concerns, and effectively respond to individuals who are at risk for suicide.
Caregivers Community Network
In partnership with the Valley Program for Aging Services (VPAS), Community Network (CCN) provides services, companionship and support for those who care for frail older family members. CCN also provides services for those with memory loss or Alzheimer’s disease. CCN can help to give caregivers a break and provide valuable time for attention to family concerns. Services are evidence-based and customized for each individual.
CASA for Children
Executive Director: Juan Pablo Molina, molinajp@jmu.edu
Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) for Children recruits, trains and supports volunteers to work with children who have undergone abuse and neglect in our communities. CASA volunteers offer judges the information they need to ensure that each child’s rights and needs are addressed while in foster care. These volunteers advocate for children until they have a permanent home and the opportunity to thrive. Outcomes include improved family relationships, improved school accomplishments and brighter horizons for adulthood roles.
Claude Moore Precious Time Pediatric Respite Care Program
Faculty Director: Melissa Leisen, leisenmc@jmu.edu
Program Director: Eric Schmucker, schmuced@jmu.edu
The Claude Moore Foundation awarded this program grant funds to provide respite care to families who have special needs children. This respite program relies on students from nursing, social work, psychology, and other health and human service majors to provide caregivers with supportive assistance in meeting the demands of their family responsibilities.
Community Health Interpreter Service
Program Coordinator: Natalia Alvarez, alvarenj@jmu.edu
Director: Deb Stranges, strangda@jmu.edu
Linguistic and cultural barriers seriously compromise the quality of health care received by hundreds of Shenandoah Valley residents. To address this challenge, the Community Health Interpreter Service provides training to bilingual persons to serve as interpreters for persons with limited English proficiency during health care encounters. The program schedules interpreters upon request from area health care providers.
Counseling and Psychological Services
Director: Dr. Tim Schulte, schulttj@jmu.edu
Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) is a teaching, research and service mental health clinic. CAPS offers affordable outpatient mental health services to the Harrisonburg and Rockingham County community while providing students in the Department of Graduate Psychology experience in assessment and treatment of psychological problems. CAPS is equipped to provide individual, couple, and family therapy as well as to conduct intellectual and psychological assessments across the lifespan.
Crossroads to Brain Injury Recovery
Director: Tamara Wagester-Subrick, wagesttx@jmu.edu
Crossroads to Brain Injury Recovery, a partnership program, implements a multi-year region-wide grant to provide case management and supportive services to families and individuals recovering from brain injuries. It assists with access to services for re-learning daily living skills and with strategies for returning to school or work.
Futuro-Latino Drug Free Communities
Coalition Coordinator: Boris Ozuna, ozunauba@jmu.edu
Director: Deb Stranges, strangda@jmu.edu
Through a broad coalition of community, faith and school leaders as well as public officials, Futuro- Latino works to reduce and prevent alcohol and substance use among Latino youth throughout Harrisonburg and Rockingham County. The coalition evaluates local data to identify when and where potential underage drinking and drug use may occur and pursues a variety of environmental strategies to reduce availability and accessibility. The program supports development of youth leaders through national conferences as well as local leadership opportunities.
Healthcare for the Homeless Suitcase Clinic
Program Coordinator: Pat Kennedy, kennedpa@jmu.edu
The Healthcare for the Homeless Suitcase Clinic provides health care at the point of contact in local shelters and human service agencies. Specifically, it provides on-site primary care services to homeless clients enrolled in local shelters while simultaneously providing case management services as needed. Staffed by a nurse practitioner and nurse case manager, this new model of healthcare delivery to homeless populations exemplifies a model of service that aims to break the cycle of homelessness by providing healthcare delivery with positive long term results.
Health Education Design Group
Director: Pat Kennedy, kennedpa@jmu.edu
The Health Education Design Group (HEDG) produces educational media in partnership with Virginia agencies and JMU programs. HEDG brings together expert research and a skilled media production team to develop creative video and online educational and training materials for health-related projects. It also works with agencies to plan and coordinate conferences and other live training sessions.
Healthy Families Page County (HFPC) & Healthy Families Shenandoah County (HFSC)
Program Director: Emily Akerson, akersoek@jmu.edu
Program Manager: Yvonne Frazier, frazieyh@jmu.edu
Healthy Families programs are based on a national program model and the two that operate in IIHHS provide education, resources and support for the most vulnerable first-time parents in Page and Shenandoah Counties through voluntary home visiting services.
Interprofessional Autism Services Clinic
Director: Dr. Trevor Stokes, stokestf@jmu.edu
The Interprofessional Autism Clinic provides in-depth assessment and multi-disciplinary intervention for children ages 3-5 years old with Autism or suspected Autism. The clinic is staffed with a licensed occupational therapist, a licensed speech and language pathologist, and a licensed clinical psychologist, in addition to graduate and undergraduate students enrolled in each of these academic programs. The clinic merges intervention methods from these disciplines and approaches can be individualized to meet each child’s unique needs.
Interprofessional Services for Learning Assessment
Director: Dr. Tim Schulte, schulttj@jmu.edu
The ISLA program offers diagnostic evaluation, consultation and support services for adults enrolled in a college or university. Evaluation teams consisting of professionals from clinical psychology, communication sciences, clinical neuropsychology, special education and nursing identify areas of need and design positive ways to promote meaningful learning and educational experiences.
Occupational Therapy Clinical Education Services
Director: Elizabeth Richardson, richaree@jmu.edu
A pediatric occupational therapy practice established to address a significant gap in locally available occupational therapy services, this clinic offers teaching, research, practice and service opportunities, and expands the interprofessional education and practice capacities of the university.
Office on Children and Youth
Director: Kim Hartzler-Weakley, hartzlkm@jmu.edu
The Office on Children and Youth (OCY), a partnership program, promotes positive youth development through collaborations with youth-serving organizations. It serves as a central point of contact for services for children and youth in the Shenandoah Valley to support, coordinate and examine the needs of our children and youth. OCY analyzes trends in risk behaviors and produces data which enables the community to develop priority areas for youth programs.
Promotores de Salud Program
Program Coordinator: Carmen Moreno, morenocx@jmu.edu
Director: Deb Stranges, strangda@jmu.edu
Promotores de Salud, a Hispanic lay health promoter program, trains Hispanic women and men to be lay health resource persons in their community. Promotores focus on specific health issues within the Hispanic community, providing family, friends, neighbors and co-workers with effective and culturally-appropriate health information. The program provides a cultural bridge between Hispanic residents and health and human services providers, reducing health disparities and fostering healthy living for all in our community.
The Reading Road Show, Gus Bus Program
Program Coordinator: Jolynne Bartley, bartl2jx@jmu.edu
Director: Michael Maurice, mauricma@jmu.edu
This initiative is a mobile literacy program serving low-income neighborhoods and day care centers in Harrisonburg, Rockingham County and Page County with a customized vehicle that provides a book exchange program, story time, nutritional support and resource referral information for families in need.
Shenandoah Valley Child Development Clinic
Program Director: Kim Hartzler-Weakley, hartzlkm@jmu.edu
Clinic Director: Ginger Griffin, griffigl@jmu.edu
The Shenandoah Valley Child Development Clinic (CDC) provides individualized, cross disciplinary evaluations that may include medical, social work, nursing, educational, psychological, speech/language and audiology components depending upon the specialized needs of the child/adolescent.
Children/adolescents evaluated may have developmental, educational, emotional or behavioral concerns. The CDC provides care coordination services and assists families in decisions that address their developmental, educational, emotional or behavioral concerns. Services are provided on a sliding fee scale and Medicaid/FAMIS are accepted. Training opportunities are available in the CDC for students from a variety of disciplines.
Shenandoah Valley Migrant Education Program & Future Forward
Lead Advocate: Kathleen Stoehr, chris2kd@jmu.edu
Director: Michael Maurice, mauricma@jmu.edu
The Migrant Education Program provides free, supplemental education services to children and youth aged 3-21 of migrant and highly mobile agricultural workers. Services include tutoring/mentoring, school readiness initiatives, dropout prevention activities, educational interpretations (Spanish/English) and facilitation of families’ stabilization in the community. The SVMEP serves as a point of contact for the Hispanic Services Council, a networking organization of agencies interested in the Latino population.
Speech-Language-Hearing Applied Laboratory
Director: Susan Ingram, ingramsb@jmu.edu
The JMU Speech-Language-Hearing Applied Laboratory, formerly referred to as the JMU Speech and Hearing Center, provides communication evaluation and treatment services to individuals with known or suspected speech and/or hearing impairments.
This center assists residents of the Shenandoah Valley ranging in age from infants to senior citizens. Hearing testing and aid advising is available for those with concerns regarding hearing. Evaluation and treatment of communication impairments, including speech, sound disorders, language impairments, voice disorders and stuttering problems, are additional services offered in the applied laboratory.
Graduate students supervised by faculty who are licensed audiologists or speech-language pathologists serve as clinicians in this lab.
Teen Pregnancy Prevention Initiative
Program Coordinator: Kati Derrick, derrickc@jmu.edu
Director: Michael Maurice, mauricma@jmu.edu
The Teen Pregnancy Prevention (TPP) program is designed to help teenagers make healthy choices and avoid risky behaviors with special emphasis on teen sexual activity and drug and alcohol use. TPP presents the best practices in school- and community-based prevention services.
The Health Place
Director: Emily Akerson, akersoek@jmu.edu
The Health Place, a satellite of the Institute for Innovation in Health and Human Services, promotes collaborative and interprofessional health and human services that are affordable, accessible, responsive to and advance the health needs of Page County residents.
Training/Technical Assistance Centers
Co-Directors: Cheryl Henderson, hendercl@jmu.edu
John McNaught, mcnaugjt@jmu.edu
The mission of Virginia’s Training/Technical Assistance Centers (T/TAC) is to improve educational opportunities and contribute to the success of children and youth with disabilities (birth through 22 years). The centers provide quality training and technical assistance in response to local, regional and state needs. T/TAC services increase the capacity of schools, school personnel, service providers and families to meet the needs of children and youth. The Region 5 T/TAC serves as the fiscal agent for the Northwestern T/TAC Consortium, which includes the Region 4 T/TAC located at George Mason University.
Valley AIDS Network
Executive Director: Paloma Saucedo, saucedpx@jmu.edu
The Valley AIDS Network (VAN) provides case management, medical and dental assistance, transportation support, client advocacy, housing assistance, and nutritional support services to people living with HIV/AIDS in this region. Through information, education, outreach and referral, VAN aims to prevent the spread of the HIV virus in the Central Shenandoah Valley.
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