The David Farber ASPIRE Center

At the David Farber ASPIRE Center, families struggling to find appropriate, compassionate and holistic care, as well as much-needed care coordination, will benefit from our ability to manage linkages to additional consultative services, supportive interventions, health education, and wellness programs. Service provision will be offered in-person, as well as through telehealth platforms, thus expanding services to those across Pennsylvania.

What will separate the David Farber ASPIRE Center from other treatment centers is an intentional focus on family and family-based intervention. Even among adult patients who enter behavioral health treatment, too frequently intervention exists within a vacuum—void of both family support to aid in advancing treatment outcomes, as well as integration of families impacted by the suicidal thoughts and behaviors of their loved ones.

The clinical branch will be staffed by a full-time director, a full-time clinician, other David Farber ASPIRE Center staff with clinical licensure, and trainees and fellows from numerous behavioral health disciplines, with an aim to strategically grow to meet demand.

All services will include data collection focused on clinical outcomes, as well as serve as a recruitment hub for advanced clinical trials.

The research branch of the center will focus on continued programmatic development and expansion of numerous existing grants focused on:

• Statewide suicide prevention efforts (including SAMHSA Garrett Lee Smith and National Strategy for Suicide Prevention, Lifeline, and 988 expansion).
• Suicide prevention in schools, colleges, primary care, behavioral health, and other healthcare settings.
• Treatment development, dissemination, and evaluation, such as Attachment-Based Family Therapy (ABFT) and related projects.

The research team will continue partnerships with the Pennsylvania Office of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services (OMHSAS) and other collaborators to develop responsive programs that meet the needs of statewide and national stakeholders.

As the research branch expands, partnerships with neuroscience and other collaborators associated with the Vickie and Jack Farber Institute for Neuroscience will be nurtured to create unique, interdisciplinary approaches to neurobiology and computational medicine.

The education and training branch of the center will expand the existing work of the team, including broad-based dissemination of suicide prevention trainings for clinicians, educators, and community stakeholders through the Prevent Suicide PA Online Learning Center. A key facet of this initiative is the Attachment-Based Family Therapy (ABFT) Training Center, with contracts for clinical training and supervision all over the world.

A primary goal of the center is to train clinicians in evidence-based interventions, thus the center will routinely host psychology interns and postdoctoral fellows, psychiatry residents (including fellows in child and adolescent psychiatry), and visiting fellows to provide clinical training and supervision.

Contracts will be explored to develop a sustained line of fellowships with city, state, and/or federal support.

The David Farber ASPIRE Center will build upon the collective strengths and deep roots both Jefferson and Dr. Wintersteen has in the region to provide a formal structure to expand our suicide prevention program abroad.