RADFORD – Ginger Burggraf and Linda Ely, faculty members in Radford University’s School of Nursing, have been awarded nearly $60,000 to support funding for the RU Mental Health Consortia. The project is the basis for development of an annual conference for mental health. Grant money is to be used for planning and implementation of the conferences for the next four years. The focus will be Attachment Disorders.

The consortium is composed of RU faculty from psychology, counselor education, criminal justice, social work, nursing, music therapy and Appalachian studies.

The counties of Floyd, Giles, Montgomery, Pulaski and the City of Radford have been designated by the federal government as underserved areas for mental health. The grant states that for the first conference, “The goals of this program will be to diminish the cascading and debilitating symptoms of children and adolescents in foster care through enhancing awareness of assessment and interventions, increasing referrals to appropriate treatment providers, and training of front-line adoptive and foster parents and case workers to utilize evidence-based treatment protocols.”

The RU School of Nursing is part of the Waldron College of Health and Human Services. To learn more, contact Ginger Burggraf at (540) 831-7714 or vburggraf2@radford.edu.