Penn GSE's Homecoming @ Home

Addressing Mental Health in Student Populations

November 6, 2021
11:00-12:00PM ET on Zoom

Zoom link will be emailed to you before the event

Penn GSE Dean Pam Grossman will moderate a conversation featuring members of the Penn GSE Community working to address the challenges and opportunities surrounding mental health among student populations. Panelists include Dr. Batsirai Bvunzawabaya, Dr. Ariane Thomas, and Dr. Caroline Watts. 

Batsirai Bvunzawabaya
Director of Integrated Care Initiatives
Student Counseling Center
University of Pennsylvania
Panelist

Pam Grossman
Dean, Graduate School of Education
George and Diane Weiss Professor of Education
Moderator

Caroline Watts 
Senior Lecturer
Human Development and Quantitative Methods Division
Director of School and Community Engagement
Panelist

Dr. Batsirai Bvunzawabaya has worked at the University of Pennsylvania for over ten years. She is currently serving as the Director of Integrated Care Initiatives at the University of Pennsylvania's Student Counseling Center. Dr. Bvunzawabaya's clinical interests include exploring issues related to minority mental health, body image concerns, sexual trauma, racial and ethnic identity development, and suicide prevention. She is strongly committed to promoting and exploring how issues of equity and inclusion are incorporated in all aspects of her practice.

Dr. Pam Grossman is the Dean of the Graduate School of Education and the George and Diane Weiss Professor of Education at the University of Pennsylvania. A distinguished scholar, she came to Penn from Stanford University’s School of Education, where she was the Nomellini-Olivier Professor of Education. At Stanford she founded and led the Center to Support Excellence in Teaching and established the Hollyhock Fellowship for early career teachers in underserved schools. Before joining Stanford, she was the Boeing Professor of Teacher Education at the University of Washington. 

Dr. Grossman’s research focuses on the preparation of teachers and other professionals and issues of instructional quality, particularly in English Language Arts. Her most recent work examines practice-based teacher education and the role of core practices of teaching in teacher preparation and professional development. She has authored or edited five books including her most recent co-authored book, Core Practices for Project-Based Learning: A Guide for Teachers and Leaders  (Harvard Education Press, 2021). Dr. Grossman has served on numerous boards and executive committees for professional organizations and foundations, including the American Educational Research Association, the National Academy of Education, and the Carnegie Foundation of Advancement of Teaching. She currently serves as Chair of the Board for the Spencer Foundation.

Dr. Ariane Thomas is a PA licensed clinical psychologist who has been working in Philadelphia and surrounding communities for over a decade. At Penn GSE she serves as a Lecturer in Educational Practice and Associate Director for Professional Training (Internship).

An expert in both psychology and law, Dr. Thomas received her M.A. and Psy.D. from the Institute for Graduate Clinical Psychology at Widener University, and simultaneously earned a J.D. from the Widener University School of Law in Delaware. In addition to writing her dissertation on the legal and psychological implications of violence in sports, she spent two years as a staff member and on the editorial board of the Widener Law Symposium Journal (currently known as Widener Law Review).

Dr. Thomas teaches courses in the Counseling and Mental Health Services program and the School and Mental Health Counseling program. Her courses include Ethics, Internship Seminar, Advanced Psychology of Women, and Advanced Skills, where she explores matters of social justice, including ensuring that counseling services are accessible to marginalized communities, as the foundation of ethical counseling practice.

Dr. Thomas maintains a private psychotherapy practice working with individuals confronting a variety of challenges, including depression, anxiety, work stress, relationship issues, racial stress, and racial identity development. In her private practice, she also works with athletes at various stages of development, addressing issues affecting them most evidently outside of their sports, with the purpose of enhancing their functioning both on and off fields of play. She also provides cost-free treatment to military veterans with trauma disorders and other mental health issues through the organization Give an Hour and offers sliding scale and cost-free treatment for Black Lives Matter advocates.

Dr. Caroline Watts is the Director of School and Community Engagement at Penn GSE, and works to facilitate and support partnerships with schools and communities in order to improve the educational outcomes and overall wellbeing of children and youth in Philadelphia. As a psychologist, program administrator, practicing child therapist and university educator, she has devoted her career to developing healthy educational environments for children and youth. She has focused on building capacity in mental health and educational systems to serve the complex needs of urban children, youth, and families through creating innovative institutional partnerships among schools, universities, and community health organizations. 

At Penn GSE, Dr. Watts has served as the university’s liaison to the Henry C. Lea Elementary School in West Philadelphia, and as a member of the Penn Partnership faculty group that served as a leadership support team for several West Philadelphia schools. She has also been the School's Coordinator of Special Education, working across divisions to develop coursework and experiential placements for students that will provide critical learning related to issues in special education and English language learners (ELL). In addition to her school- and community-based work, Dr. Watts coordinates the internship program for students in the Professional Counseling Program at Penn GSE.

Before coming to Penn GSE in 2008, Dr. Watts was the founding director of the Children’s Hospital Neighborhood Partnerships Program (CHNP), the community mental health outreach program of the Department of Psychiatry at Children’s Hospital Boston. Dr. Watts was also a lecturer on education in the Risk and Prevention Program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Dr. Watts has over 20 years of experience working in community and school settings to develop models for prevention and intervention services provided in a tripartite university-community agency-public school collaborative structure. She is a licensed practitioner of psychology in the states of Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and New Jersey. Dr. Watts has served as clinical director of the Devereux-Deerhaven Residential Treatment Center for Girls in Chester, New Jersey, the nation’s largest not-for-profit behavioral health care provider. She is on the Education and Behavioral Health Committees of the Board of Public Citizens for Children and Youth (PCCY), a Philadelphia-based child advocacy organization.