Behavioral Health Students Create Community Solutions

This fall, students in Dr. Annie Ginty’s PSY/NSC 4312 Behavioral Medicine class worked with eight nonprofit organizations to develop resources, conduct research, create videos, and propose tangible solutions to community challenges. Six of these organizations are doing important work in the Waco community, and two are global organizations who have established partnerships with Baylor through Missions, Service and Public Life. Students presented their work at a poster presentation session in December and provided deliverables to the organizations for their ongoing use.

Pictured are Atul Rao and Lauren Valencia with their poster summarizing their work for The Cove. They were asked to use client survey data and staff interviews to develop a framework for measuring stability in the homeless youth population.

Students Krystyna Morawiec and Elizabeth Siatkowski created data visualizations for Community Doulas of Waco to concisely communicate the impact of their work for use in donor communication and outreach efforts. The nonprofit partner was able to use the students’ project in a presentation to a managed care organization.

Another group developed videos on topics of physical and emotional health and discussion questions for use by Orchard Africa with a group of young mothers in South Africa. The nonprofit agency had produced curriculum for the women during pregnancy, and they were able to build upon that content with the materials developed by the Baylor students in this course.

Community partners for this course were:

• Better Living for Texans

• Community Doulas of Waco

• The Cove

• Family Abuse Center

• GTG Outdoors

• Isaiah 117 House

• One More Child, and 

• Orchard Africa

Engaged learning courses like Dr. Ginty's offer a double impact—students can connect classroom learning with real world scenarios and nonprofit partners receive tools and products that they can use in their work.