Our Story
We are a group of researchers, clinicians, and young adults who want to improve the lives of Youth and Young Adults living with mental health conditions. We do research to understand and establish better ways to support this population in their education and job goals, and translate the results into knowledge which we then share with a mixed audience of researchers, service providers, policy-makers, young adults, and family members.
Transitions to Adulthood Center for Research (Transitions ACR) is part of University of Massachusetts Medical School and our mission is to promote the full participation in socially valued roles of transition-age youth and young adults (ages 14-30) with serious mental health conditions. We use the tools of research and knowledge translation in partnership with this at risk population to achieve this mission. We produce Tip Sheets, Issue Briefs, Posters, Presentations, Webinars and Events to disseminate our research results. You can find them all here: https://www.umassmed.edu/sparc/
We also believe that Youth Voice is essential to everything we do. Youth Voice means the empowerment and involvement of young people in all levels of services. For example: as individual consumers of services, as advisors to systems, or as members of a research team. Transitions ACR has recognized the importance of implementing a PAR (Participatory Action Research) Framework to support the employment and education efforts of youth and young adults (Y&YA) with serious mental health conditions. You can find more information about our Youth Voice here: https://www.umassmed.edu/TransitionsACR/youth-voice/