Awarded Community Engagement Pilot Grants
The UVA Brain Institute offers a seed funding program to provide pilot funding to support the critical role that community partners play in promoting brain health awareness and research.
In July 2024, the Brain Institute funded its first community engagement pilot grants.
Awardees
2025
Advancing Early Intervention for Prenatal Substance Exposure and Relational Trauma
Stephanie McNerney - School of Medicine, Emily Boshkoff - UVA Health, Rebecca Schmidt - School of Data Science
The Infant Relational Health Consortium (IRHC) seeks to improve outcomes for infants and families impacted by prenatal substance exposure (PSE) and relational trauma through interdisciplinary collaboration, workforce development, and evidence-based interventions. Rooted in a strength-based approach, the IRHC will address critical gaps in early identification, attachment-focused care, and community support systems. This initiative aligns with state and national priorities, leveraging partnerships to promote relational health, reduce intergenerational trauma, and enhance developmental outcomes for vulnerable populations.
The WellAware Brain Health Project
Betsy Peyton, Director of WellAware Program
The WellAware Community Health Worker (CHW) program, housed within the Population Health Department at the University of Virginia, is collaborating with the Brain Health Institute and the Department of Neurology on a new initiative to enhance brain health literacy in Charlottesville and the surrounding rural communities. The project’s key objective is to leverage the CHWs’ strong community relationships—built through home visiting and sharing lived experience—to improve individual and community understanding of brain health, especially around stroke prevention and early dementia screenings. CHWs will receive specialized training to provide interactive patient education materials to their patients. For example, to demonstrate the mechanism of a stroke, they will have life-sized model brains with vascular systems that patients can handle and explore.
2024
Measuring the Psychophysiological Impact of Mindfulness on Emotion Regulation in Autistic Adults with Intellectual Disability
Rose Nevill, PhD - School of Education and Human Development
Insight Meditation Community of Charlottesville, Community Partner
Adults with autism and mild-moderate intellectual disability are at higher risk of poor mental health, but there is a lack of evidence-based treatments. Low emotion regulation, or challenges controlling one’s emotions, is an underlying risk factor for mental health disorders in adults with autism. The goal of this project is to improve emotion regulation in adults with autism and mild-moderate intellectual disability. The team will to use a mindfulness-based intervention with community-based mindfulness instructors to collect psychophysiological data using Fitbits and assess emotion regulation change.
Brain Wellness Program
Ishan Williams, PhD - School of Nursing
Pilgrim Baptist Church, Community Partner
This community engagement program promotes brain health to ensure optimal brain functioning. This project will help address the information gap on maintaining a healthy brain in Black communities. Participants will be educated on the importance of a healthy lifestyle while being guided in physical activity by an expert for the eight-week sessions. The goal is to increase the awareness of brain health activities that can improve brain health overall and potentially influence the rate of cognitive decline among populations who see a higher burden of disease.
Enhancing Community Engaged Research using Community Advisory Boards
Carol Manning, PhD - School of Medicine, Ishan Williams, PhD - School of Nursing, Mel Cottrell - School of Nursing
Virginia Alzheimer’s Disease Center Community Advisory Board, Community Partner
Brain health is a critical issue affecting communities throughout the Commonwealth of Virginia, and many communities face brain health issues, have fewer resources, and are at risk of discrimination from healthcare providers. The goal of this project is to enhance community engagement in brain health initiatives across Virginia through regular Community Advisory Board meetings and community outreach.
This page will be updated as additional pilot grants are awarded.