A professor at Hunter’s Lois V. and Samuel J. Silberman School of Social Work has received a four-year, $850,000 federal grant for autism research.
Laura Graham Holmes was awarded a Patient-Oriented Research Career Development Award from the National Institutes of Mental Health to develop psychosocial interventions that will improve the mental health and quality of life of autistic adults.
“I’m thankful for the support of my mentors and advisers, who bring knowledge from many disciplines to support this project, and for the immense and continued support of the Silberman School of Social Work,” Graham Holmes said.
The interventions will address the needs of the many autistic people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or gender non-conforming. Such individuals have a greater risk of depression, anxiety, and suicide than do autistic cisgender heterosexual individuals and report more unmet mental-health-care needs.
The award will support Graham Holmes in designing clinical trials and developing ethical data and safety monitoring for groups at greater risk for suicide. Graham Holmes will collaborate with sexual- and gender-minority autistic persons in developing and testing a collaborate with sexual- and gender-minority autistic persons in developing and testing a group-based, online psychosocial intervention, which will adapt evidence-based principles for addressing minority stress into an accessible, relevant, effective intervention for autistic people.
The nationally ranked Silberman School of Social Work enrolls more than 1,400 master’s-level students and over 100 bachelor’s-level students offering social work education and training in an ultramodern facility taught by distinguished faculty and leading field-practice educators.
Established in 1956 and found at Third Avenue and 119th Street in East Harlem, Silberman is the oldest and largest public school of social work in New York. Its mission is to promote civic engagement and dedication to public services. Its student body, field agencies, and alumni are the primary social-work workforce of the public human-service departments and not-for-profit agencies in New York City.
