Dr. Cheryl King is a Professor in the Departments of Psychiatry and Psychology and Director of the Youth and Young Adult Depression and Suicide Prevention Research Program in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Michigan Medical School. Dr. King also serves as the Suicide Content Lead for the U-M Injury Prevention Center, where she provides expertise regarding the risk of suicide. She is well known for her expertise in suicide risk assessment and prevention in youth and young adults. Dr. King is a clinical scientist who studies clinical interventions and public health approaches to optimize youth screening strategies, risk assessments, and psychosocial interventions for both individuals and high-risk groups. Dr. King contributed to the U-M IPC Massive Open Online Course, “Injury Prevention for Children and Teens” in the Suicide Prevention section.
Cheryl King, PhD,
Director, University of Michigan College of Literature, Science, and the ArtsProfessor, U-M Medical School
Suicide Content Lead, University of Michigan Injury Prevention Center
https://medicine.umich.edu/dept/psychiatry/programs/youth-depression-suicide-prevention-program/meet-team
https://lsa.umich.edu/psych/people/faculty/kingca.html
https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/king-lab/meet-the-team/
https://medicine.umich.edu/dept/psychiatry/cheryl-king-phd
https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/king-lab/
Biography
Research Interests
Dr. King’s Youth and Young Adult Depression and Suicide Prevention Research Program focuses on the development and improvement of evidence-based screening tools, risk assessment strategies, and psychosocial interventions for suicidal adolescents and young adults. The program also focuses on the developmental trajectories, including risk and resilience factors, of youth and young adults who are facing social and/or mental health challenges; predictors of the longitudinal outcomes of psychiatric emergency patients; and strategies for optimizing clinical risk assessment with high risk individuals. Dr. Cheryl King, PhD is the suicide prevention content lead at the U-M Injury Prevention Center and director of the Youth and Young Adult Depression and Suicide Prevention Research Program. Dr. King, along with Dr. Michael Lindsey and Dr. Pamela Morris-Perez of NYU, is a multi-principal investigator for the NIMH-funded WeCARE clinical effectiveness study. WeCARE is a system designed to reduce the risk of suicide among black youth. The program consists of universal screening in the emergency department, using an adaptive screening tool, and a suicide prevention intervention that includes safety planning and follow-up text messages to the youth and their caregivers. This project builds on previous large-scale projects by her team. This includes the Computerized Adaptive Screen for Suicidal Youth (CASSY), developed in collaboration with the Pediatric Emergency Care Applied Research Network (PECARN). CASSY will be used for the screening component of this project. The University of Michigan is conducting interviews to gain feedback from community partners. This includes medical directors, social workers, clinicians, child psychiatrists, youth, and caregivers. Rapid qualitative analysis will be used to summarize the feedback, and changes to the program will be made as appropriate. The full trial will begin in late fall 2023 at Harlem Hospital and Kings County Hospital in New York City.