George Jay Unick, PhD, MSW, Associate Professor, UM School of Social Work

Carmela DeCandia, PsyD, Founder & Owner, Artemis Associates

Dr. Katie Volk

Dr. Wayne Centrone, Founder and Executive Director, Health Bridges International

The University of Maryland School of Social Work, Health Bridges International (HBI), and Artemis Associates have joined together to develop NEST-Peru, a Neurodevelopmental Ecological Screening and Referral mHealth Tool to Link Children and Families to Behavioral Health Care in Peru. NEST will build a mHealth platform for the screening of developmental and mental health risk in children ages 6-12 in the Peruvian child welfare/mental health system and develop a referral and treatment recommendation algorithm to link children at risk to existing behavioral health resources in Peru. 

PGIF funds will be used to build and test the screening instrument, develop the mHealth platform, and develop the referral algorithm for two geographic locations in Peru (Ica and Carabayllo) where HBI runs clinics and residential treatment centers that work within the Peruvian child welfare system.