Extraordinary public impact: UM, Arlee win national research award

MISSOULA – University of Montana researchers and community officials in Arlee have worked together on a project since 2017 to promote mental health on the Flathead Indian Reservation. Their efforts recently resulted in a major national honor.

UM took home the 2024 Public Impact Research Award, presented by the national Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities during its annual meeting in Orlando, Florida, Nov. 10-12. The award recognizes a research effort that produced extraordinary public impact.

The award was for Project SELA, which stands for Social Emotional Learning in Arlee. Born out of the community’s desire to address a growing mental health crisis, the project directly responded to community needs through a collaborative process to develop, implement and evaluate a culturally relevant social-emotional learning program called Pathways to Wellness in Arlee Schools.

“This award is a testimony to the strengths of the Arlee community, the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes and their unwavering dedication and love for the children,” said Jingjing Sun, a UM researcher and associate professor of educational psychology. “It also speaks to the gained trust between community members and our UM team, and the relational nature of research to have public impact.”

The APLU Public Impact Research Award recognizes an institution that implemented one or more impactful public impact research efforts and produced exceptional outcomes.

“Research that improves the lives of communities across the country is a central mission for public universities, and we’re thrilled to highlight an institution that has worked with its community to tackle mental health challenges in areas that are far too often underserved,” said APLU President Mark Becker.

Pathway to Wellness is a research-practice partnership between the University and CSKT educators, parents and community members. It engaged with a community advisory board, educational leadership, teachers, school counselors, parents and students to co-design a mental health wellness program based on social-emotional learning practices paired with the cultural values of the tribes.

Through a seven-year process, the project first piloted the curriculum among students in grades 3-6. In 2023 the program expanded to include K-2, and the project is in the process of expanding to grades 7-8.

Sun said the Arlee community has seen many qualitative benefits from the curriculum, including improved social-emotional competencies in children. Because of this impact, the school board formally integrated the program into the curriculum for grades K-6.

“This reciprocal and timely project arrived just as our community was facing multiple challenges,” said Ronda Howlett, an Arlee community member. “The University team came alongside our students, caregivers and teachers. They helped shine light on Arlee’s aspirations for our community’s wellness journey by reaching across the reservation to listen to our elders, tribal educators and leaders reflect on the importance of teaching our ways of being and tribal languages for sustaining our healthy communities. This generational knowledge and experience serves as the foundation of our Pathways to Wellness curriculum.”

In addition to the community impact, the researchers published several studies on Pathway to Wellness to share best practices and increase the evidence base on improving mental health among tribal communities. Becker said this is particularly significant given the lack of research on education in Indigenous communities – particularly rural ones.

“As researchers our role is to harness the resources that we have at UM to support the community’s vision and to foster the strengths that the community already has to support their young people,” said UM psychology Professor Anisa Goforth. “It is community members like Ronda Howlett and Debbie Hogenson, who have dedicated so much time to developing Pathways to Wellness, and dedicated staff like Kelsey Tritz, Kayla Dix and Anne Tanner and CSKT leaders like Michelle Mitchell, who have incorporated this program into the curriculum to support their students’ social-emotional well-being.”

Scott Whittenburg, UM vice president for research and creative scholarship, attended the APLU conference to pick up the award on behalf of the University and Arlee.

“It was outstanding for Montana to receive this honor before our peers on a national stage of that magnitude,” Whittenburg said. “This award demonstrates that a Carnegie R1 university can help lead inclusive prosperity in our community and region.”

To learn more about Pathways to Wellness, visit  youtube.com/@5PathwaystoWellness.