Innovation at the University of Louisville generates a forward momentum that fuels a thriving culture of opportunity and excellence. But every so often, it’s worth looking back at where UofL and its community was to know how it’s doing now – to see how yesterday’s news continues to make an impact today.

Below, revisit a few stories from UofL News’ past to see how the promise of what-could-be became a promise kept.

June 29, 2020: UofL Kent School partners with Wellspring to aid homeless Louisvillians

In 2020, the Kent School of Social Work and Family Science announced their partnership with nonprofit organization Wellspring on a new five-year federal grant to offer a unified approach to help homeless people experiencing both mental health and substance abuse issues to find housing and recovery.

Bibhuti Sar, professor of social work and the grant’s lead investigator, noted that people having mental health and substance issues combined with housing insecurity was a major concern for Louisville. “The (Kent School and UofL) strongly support the wellbeing of the community. We welcome the partnership of Wellspring to enhance their efforts and experience to do that work,” he said.

“This will be a life-changing program” Wellspring CEO and Kent alumna Katharine Dobbins said at the time. “We will take a harm-reduction approach, but critical life experiences serve as opportunities to help individuals make positive changes.”

Five years later, the grant project has wrapped up and, according to Sar, produced positive results.

The partnership established the Program for Integrated Care (PIC), an intensive, multidisciplinary clinical treatment and outreach service for at-risk individuals. Comparing a baseline and six-month follow up, participant data shows a decreased use of substances, less depression, anxiety, hallucinations, fewer suicide attempts and increased satisfaction with personal relationships. Impressively, the percentage of participants who were living on the street/outdoors or in a shelter decreased by 27%.

The PIC program made a difference for “Simon,” 52, who was referred to the program in 2021 with a diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder, PTSD and methamphetamine abuse after losing his apartment and returning to homelessness in late 2020. Simon developed a strong relationship with PIC’s full-time peer support specialist who was able to help him build recovery skills toward sobriety. Simon has now been through two successful lease renewals at his apartment, is in the beginning stages of Section 8’s homeownership program, has been sober for over a year and is learning to read and write to become a peer support specialist himself.

Though the grant-funded collaboration has concluded, Wellspring leadership are currently engaged in efforts to sustain the program to continue serving the community.��

March 31, 2022: UofL expands its reach to Shelbyville, providing dental care for the underserved

In 2022, UofL’s School of Dentistry expanded its footprint with a new clinical site in Shelbyville, Kentucky, just south of U.S. 60 East. The new practice opened to further fulfill the dental school’s mission of improving the oral health of all Kentuckians by providing close-to-home access for those in need.

The new site also offered dental students a community location near Louisville to learn alongside a full-time licensed dentist. At the time, now School of Dentistry Dean Margaret Hill highlighted the importance of students growing their skills in a variety of settings. “As our students travel to other parts of Kentucky, they are maturing into culturally competent dental practitioners,” Hill said. “We build service into the educational experience – not just on a volunteer level but as part of the curriculum.”

The office’s inaugural full-time dentist was alumna Pallavi Patil, who emphasized the importance of establishing a good patient-doctor rapport to help motivate patients to seek out comprehensive dental care.

The Shelbyville location’s current full-time dentist, alumna Rhonda Swanson, echoed Patil’s patient-focused mission while celebrating the clinic’s community-focused achievements.

“UofL’s outreach clinics are such a blessing to the communities they serve,” said Swanson. “Since (opening) in 2022, we’ve served thousands of patients, including many who have Medicaid or no dental insurance. As a shortage of Medicaid providers continues to limit care for so many people, our clinic provides access to care for those who may not otherwise have a provider, thus promoting better oral health outcomes in this community.”

Additionally, Swanson said that the clinic now partners with Shelbyville’s Veterans Rural Outreach program to provide oral care for select veterans, made possible through UofL’s fund.

Aug. 11, 2022: UofL employee launches equine therapy organization, Cope’s Hope

In 2021, College of ����ֱ�� and Human Development staff member Eric Wright and his wife, Debbie, turned their personal journey into a community service geared toward helping children and families with their founding of Cope’s Hope Equine Assisted Services.

Inspired by the needs of their daughters, Ella and Elsie, Cope’s Hope was created to fill a care void Wright and his family naturally found themselves in during the COVID-19 pandemic when their weekly equine assisted therapy sessions were no longer available. Rather than wait for things to return to normal, Wright took the reins and purchased his uncle’s farm, became a licensed counselor through UofL’s and started his family’s own organization, named for his grandfather and Brandeis School of Law alumnus Arthur Coaplen.

“We’ve just had a flurry of people wrap themselves around this project and this vision,” Wright said at the time. “To be able to offer even a small percentage of people the opportunity to work with horses, whether it be for mental health or for therapeutic services, is so rewarding.”

Three years later, Cope’s Hope continues to grow, serving clients weekly from its Fisherville, Kentucky, location and through partnerships with organizations including the Kentucky School for the Blind, North Star Achievement Center, the Dream Factory of Louisville and even the U.S. Secret Service. These collaborations reflect their commitment to creating safe and supportive environments for healing through a connection with horses.

This summer, the WHAS Crusade for Children awarded the organization a generous grant to expand their therapeutic riding sessions over the next three seasons. Another grant from the American Heart Association allowed them to install emergency preparedness equipment onsite to boost safety for clients, volunteers and their rural neighbors. Other neighborly efforts have included community outreach such as the Hats, Hooves for Hope Parade in the spring and their recent 4th Annual Barn Dance to celebrate persons with different needs.

What began as a response to their own family’s needs has naturally grown into a sanctuary of healing for many.

“We’ve built more than a service,” Wright said. “We’ve built a community.”

Savannah Harper contributed to this story.

Did you know that alcohol misuse is the fifth leading risk factor for premature death and disability globally and among people between the ages of 15 and 49, it is the first? For those 20 to 39 years old, approximately 25 percent of the total deaths are alcohol attributable.

A group at UofL is working to ensure our students don’t fall victim to these statistics. The Building Resiliency in Campus Community (BRICC) Coalition, a Campus Health Services partnership, was created in 2007 in an effort to advance policies, programs and resources that increase resiliency and reduce high risk drinking on campus and in the community.

In 2010, Heather Parrino came on board as program manager. BRICC has since secured major gifts from Beam Suntory and Brown-Forman to support staff, programming, and infrastructure. They have developed additional resources, including the Voice of Reason manual and other initiatives that Parrino says have yielded tremendous success.

“We’ve been very successful because we have so many committed volunteers (about 200), we work with community and campus partners and we have external funding. I think we’re also serving as leaders in this area because we meet students where they are,” Parrino said.

That means, for example, hosting meetings in the basement of a fraternity house or sharing relevant information on residence hall bulletin boards.

Parrino specifically measures success through three metrics:

1. UofL’s AlcoholEdu (alcohol prevention) and Haven (sexual violence prevention) programs, funded by the president, provost, and Campus Health Services. (AlcoholEdu is mandated for every first time freshmen and transfer student under 21 and Haven is required for every student. AlcoholEdu educates students about the impact of alcohol and how to prevent high-risk situations where alcohol is present. Haven addresses critical issues of sexual assault, relationship violence, stalking, and sexual harassment.

2. A state law ()��passed in 2013 to provide immunity from prosecution for students who choose to call for help in an emergency.

“We support students that choose to drink and students that choose not to drink. We want to make sure all of our students stay safe,” she said.

3. UofL developed the Voice of Reason manual about three years ago so that students could have tangible takeaways from their prevention training programs. The manual was created after an in-depth needs assessment, in partnership with Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, was completed in 2010, which included a focus groups of students and staff throughout campus.

“We rode in police cars, we came to campus at night, we went into apartment complexes. We would talk to anyone who would talk to us. In our needs assessment, we realized there is a lot of misinformation out there about alcohol use and that much of the communication is ineffective and disingenuous,” Parrino said. “This was our base for the Voice of Reason manual.”

Much of BRICC’s current strategic plan also came out of the needs assessment. The main objective is to “build resilience.”

“Alcohol isn’t the number one issue, resilience is,” Parrino said. “There are two main reasons people drink – to celebrate and to deal with stress. If we can teach students how to celebrate differently – going to dinner with their friends, going on a hike, etc. – then we can teach them life skills development to avoid major issues. We can teach them resilience. At the end of the day, the stress and the reason for celebrating are still there.”

BRICC has been using the Voice of Reason manual for three years. It has been so effective, Parrino said, the University of Kentucky is piloting it this year.

BRICC also features a number of other programs, including:

• TIPs Training. TIPs stands for Training for Intervention Procedures. TIPs University certification is beneficial for students who are in charge of planning events, serving as RAs, risk management chairs and in other leadership positions. TIPs University “recognizes that students are in the best position to address drinking behaviors among their peers,” or, as Parrino explains, “meeting students where they are.”

BRICC offers monthly TIPs University certifications to students and campus/community partners that serve students. The classes last four hours. In BRICC’s fall semester training, 68 RAs were certified prior to campus move-in day.

“My favorite part as a TIPs trainer is watching people arrive thinking they are going to listen to a boring lecture about alcohol information. Our participants become very engaged as they realize they are the experts and we are going to work together to facilitate conversations to address issues that are specific to them and their friends,” Parrino said.

• BRICC Wall. The engages students with community members, businesses and city officials to “make changes in their communities and remove roadblocks to their academic success.” The exhibit challenges assumptions and encourages healthy decisions. It is made up of messages from students sharing their own stories about alcohol and substance abuse. The messages are written on “bricks” displayed as part of the exhibit.��

• Greeks Advocating Matuer Management of Alcohol (GAMMA). BRICC provides funding, resources, and a staff advisor for Greeks Advocating Mature Management of Alcohol, a UofL RSO. In the fall, GAMMA members lead the Voice of Reason initiative, a strategy to help both drinkers and nondrinkers make safer decisions in social settings. VOR includes five one-hour sessions that cover basic alcohol knowledge, awareness of risks, effective messaging and implementing strategies.

• This semester, BRICC will also launch a new RSO called “Advocates for Recovery.” The first meeting is March 9. The organization will offer broad-based support to students in recovery, and will also include friends and allies of students in recovery. Programming will focus on increasing resilience, academic achievement, health and overall wellbeing.

Though the organization is still in the planning phase, Parrino said more than 150 students have expressed interest.

“As with everything we’ve done, we need to start from the ground and we need to find allies,” Parrino said. “I look at what we’re doing as more macro than programming. Our students need more than programming. We are constantly looking at how we can take care of them.”

More information about the BRICC Coalition is .��