Janis Whitlock

Janis Whitlock

Janis Whitlock is a Research Scientist in the Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research. She is also the Director of the Cornell Research Program on Self-Injurious Behavior in Adolescence and Young Adults. She is the author of publications on non-suicidal self-injury in adolescence and young adulthood as well as in youth connectedness to schools and communities. She earned a doctorate in Developmental Psychology from Cornell University (2003) and a Masters of Public Health from UNC Chapel Hill (1994). In addition to research, she has worked in adolescent and women’s health in a variety of clinical, administrative, and education-related capacities for over a decade. Her current research focus includes development of early detection and intervention in mental health and wellbeing for youth in college and community settings, recovery from self-injurious behaviors, parental influence in and experience of young people's self-injury and suicidality, the relationship between connectedness and self-injury and suicide behaviors, and development and evaluation of interventions for youth and parents of self-injurious youth.

I annually advise 8-10 students through my research lab and another 3-4 in independent studies or honors theses.  I see their involvment in my program as a gift to all of us since the vast majority of them are motivated, highly talented, and capable of significant focus when engaged.  I believe strongly in coupling cognitive engagement with opportunities for applying concepts learned through development of materials, synthesis, and other concrete products useful for the project (e.g. materials that go onto our website for distribution).  Students benefit through acquiring new skills and, in some cases, having reports or other publications to add to their resume and the program mbenefits through their fresh perspective, ideas, and finished work.  They also work in teams to accomplish these goals so benefit through new relationship ties and the shared learning that happens in this environment.  I believe that it is a satisfying experience for everyone.

My current professional agenda is dedicated to research, outreach, and advising. Research in young adult social and emotional health and wellbeing continues to dominate my professional work with a focus on connectedness, self-injury and suicide prevention and intervention development.  One of the NIH grant applications that I submitted last year was awarded in the summer of 2012 and I am actively engaged as co-PI on three of the BCTR seed grants so much focus this year has been on developing the NIH funded study (and SBIR intervention development grant) and supporting development of the BCTR seed grant studies.  I have also been busy with publications this academic year as well as working with colleagues to submit new grants. The remainder of my time goes to overseeing on-going studies, advising students in my lab, class, and independent studies, reviewing papers and grants, serving on professional committees, giving talks and consultation to community-based agencies and organizations and developing web-based materials for dissemination to the public.

 In addition to research, I  supervise research activities for 15-20 undergraduate students a year, as independent studies and as part of my lab, The Cornell Research Program on Self-Injurious Behavior in Adolescents and Young Adults. In the arena of professional service, I  regularly work with Cornell health services to develop and execute proposals related to college mental health and sit on several committees related to campus mental health and research including the Council on Mental Health and Welfare and the Mental Health Programmers Committee. I also regularly provide training and talks to Cornell student and academic services staff on issues germane to college mental health and young adult development. Because of the national profile of the work conducted by my team and in conjunction with colleagues, I am routinely invited to give talks within New York State and in national venues. I have also been invited to serve as an advisor to national and international organizations focused on college mental health, such as the JED Foundation, Kognito, and PsychWire, a new international mental health organization launching a web-based professional forum for mental health academics and clinicians.  Lastly, I am regularly asked for press interviews related to self-injury and adolescent mental health.

My current research is dedicated to exploration of the relationship between context, development, and behavior, with a focus on longitudinal assessment and development and testing of interventions. Although known for my work in non-suicidal self-injury, my current work focuses more broadly on health and wellbeing trajectories with particular interest in the relationship between meaning making, emotion regulation and development of adverse or productive coping capacity over time. Because of emergent findings from our work, focus on the role of parents in supporting recovery and wellbeing is becoming a new focus of research activity.

More specifically, my current research and translation activities include:

Phase I SBIR (small business innovation grant) funded by NICHD with the 3-C institute for Social Development for development of a web-based intervention for parents of self-injurious youth.  The 3 module prototype is being developed and feasibility tested this year; phase II grant development will happen next year.

 New studies in areas linked to purpose in life interventions with adolescent populations (with Tony Burrow), relationship of use of social networking sites on mental health related disclosures (with Natalie Basarova and Dan Cosley), and the relationship of puberty and NSSI (with Jane Mendle).  I also recently submitted a Hatch proposal to support development of a positive sexual health index.

 This year is also the final year of a Hatch funded project aimed at investigating the experience of parents living with self-injurious youth. This mixed methods study just ended the data collection phase and is now entering the data analysis phase - a stage in which many students, graduate and undergraduate are involved.  We anticipate that the findings will add knowledge to the NSSI and recovery fields as well as serve as seed data for larger grant applications.  It is also a study which is being replicated in both Holland and Australia.

 I also have on going data analysis from a longitudinal dataset on adolescent and college populations related to:

·       The temporal relationship between NSSI and suicide-related behaviors(paper just published from these analyses)

·        Trends in recovery from NSSI and suicide

·       The relationship between academic stress, mental health, and academic functioning

·       The role of connectedness in suicide prevention on college campuses (a report just issued on this topic)

·       The role of emotion regulation, and cognitive style in predicting mental health outcomes

 ·       The role of parents in recovery from NSSI and suicide

All of my research activities contain outreach components of value to the Cornell Extension mission. Since I feel strongly about the importance of disseminating information amassed through the research process, I work hard to find mechanisms for supporting the dissemination and outreach component. For example, the CRPSIB team of undergraduate students and a growing number of graduate students has managed to maintain development of web-based materials related to non-suicidal self-injury since 2007- via fact sheets, web-based power point presentations, and web accessible video segments. We add materials to this pool of resoruces every year. Materials have been designed for a broad constituency: individuals with self-injury history, parents, peers, and schools and other youth serving agencies seeking guidance about protocols for handling self-injury in institutional settings. Many of these fact sheets have been translated into multiple languages including French, German, and Spanish.  The website receives over 7,000 unique vistors a month and our facsheets are downloaded multiple times a day. In addition, I regularly do talks to local and national groups, academics and non-academics, in areas related to my expertise and much of my youth-development and school climate-related research is conducted as part of university-community partnerships. All research findings are then made available to our partners and, through them, to the larger communities they affect.

2003. Ph.D., Human Development, Cornell University.
Dissertation: Voice, Visibility, Place, and Power: Correlates to School and
Community Connectedness Among 8th, 10th and 12th Grade Youth

1994. MPH, Health Behavior & Health Education, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Masters Thesis: Helpless but not Hopeless: Parental Perspectives on Adolescent Dating Abuse

1988 B.A., Social Sciences Field Studies, University of California, Berkeley
Undergraduate Thesis: The Women's Self Help Movement: Ideology and Action                   

I no longer teach HD 3530 but do teach Idenpendent Study courses to several students a year.  This year, I have worked with 4 students on honors thesis, a condensed HD3530 class, and independent studies. I also teach the students in my lab - 15-20 per year in a smal seminar format.

Cornell Research Program on Self-Injurious Behavior (CRPSIB)
www.human.cornell.edu/fldc/

I weare no formal adminstrative hats.  More informal admisntrative duties include:

 Cornell committess:

* The Council on Mental Health and Welfare

* Mental Health Programmers

* Student engagment committee chair for the Bronfenbrenner Cetner for Translational Research (BCTR) related to student engagement.

Extra-Cornell committees:

I am also a committee member for the International Society for the Study of Self Injury and a newly appointed chair person for the the media and communications arm of the Society for Research in Adolescence.

Kress, V., Newgent, R., Whitlock, J., Mease, L. (in press).  Spirituality, Life Satisfaction, and Life Meaning: Protective Factors for Non-Suicidal Self-Injury. Journal of College Counselling.

Whitlock, J. Pietrusza, C. & Purington, A. (2013).  Young adult respondent experiences of disclosing self-injury, suicide-related behavior, and psychological distress in a web-based survey. Archives of Suicide Research, 17(1).

Whitlock, J., Muehlenkamp, J., Eckenrode, J., Purington, A., Barrera, P., Baral-Abrams, G., Kress, V., Grace Martin, K, Smith, E., (2012). Non-suicidal self-injury as a gateway to suicide in adolescents and young adults. Journal of Adolescent Health.

Eisenberg, D., Golberstein, E., Whitlock, J., Downs, M. (in press). Social contagion of mental health: Evidence from college roommates. Health Economics.

Muehlenkamp, J., Brausch, A., Quigley, B., Whitlock, J. (in press).  Interpersonal features and functions of NSSI. Suicide and Life Threating Behavior.

Duggan, J.M., Whitlock, J. (2012). An Investigation of Online Behaviors: Self-Injury In Cyber Space. Encyclopedia of Cyber Behavior.  IGI Global.

Whitlock, J, Muehlenkamp, J., Purington, A., Eckenrode, J., Barreira, J., Abrams, G.B., Marchell, T., Kress, K., Girard, K., Chin, C., Knox, K. (2011). Non-Suicidal Self-Injury in a College Population: General Trends and Sex Differences. Journal of American College Health, 59(8): 691-698.

Whitlock, J.L. & Selekman, M. (in press).  Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) across the lifespan. In Oxford Handbook of Suicide and Self-Injury, edited by M. Nock. Oxford Library of Psychology, Oxford University Press.

Whitlock, J.L. (2010). [Review of the book Adolescent girls in crisis: Intervention and hope, by Martha B. Straus]. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 49, 9.

Whitlock, J.L. (2010).  Self-injurious behavior in adolescence.  Public Library of Science 7(5): e1000240.

Purington, A & Whitlock, J (2010).  Non-suicidal self-injury and the Internet: Implications for prevention.  The Prevention Researcher, 17(1): 11-13

McNeely, C., Whitlock, J., Libby, H. (2009).  School connectedness and adolescent well-being.  In Handbook on School-Family Partnerships for Promoting Student Competence, edited by S. L. Christenson & A. L. Reschly. 

Whitlock, J.L., Eells, G., Cummings, N., Purington, A. (2009). Non-suicidal self-injury on college campuses: Mental health provider assessment of prevalence and need. Journal of College Student Psychotherapy, 23(3): 172-183.

Whitlock, J.L., Purington, A., Gershkovich, M. (2009). Influence of the media on self injurious behavior. In Understanding Non-Suicidal Self-Injury Current Science and Practice, edited by M. Nock. American Psychological Association Press. 139-156.

Whitlock, J.L. (2008). Preparing for Tomorrow by Living for Today: Cultivating Connection and Voice at School. New York State School Counseling Journal. 5(2): 65-68.

Whitlock, J.L., Muehlenkamp, J., Eckenrode, J. (2008). Variation in non-suicidal self-injury: Identification of latent classes in a community population of young adults.  Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology. 37(4).  725-735.

Whitlock, J.L. & Knox, K. (2008). Community sources and solutions: Detection and prevention of self-injurious behavior in youth populations. Self-injury in youth: The essential guide to assessment and intervention edited by N. Heath and M. K. Nixon. Routledge Press. Pgs. 173-194.

Whitlock, J.L., Powers, J.L (2008). Places to be, places to belong: Youth perceptions of life in community. The Prevention Researcher. 15(2): 12-15.

Whitlock, J.L., Lader, W., Conterio, K. (2007). The internet and self-injury: What psychotherapists should know.  Journal of Clinical Psychology/In Session 63: 1135-1143.

Whitlock, J.L.&  Knox, K. (2007). The relationship between suicide and self-injury in a young adult population.  Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine. 161(7): 634-640.

Whitlock, J.L. (2007). The role of adults, public space, and power in adolescent community connectedness. Journal of Community Psychology. 35(3).

Whitlock, J.L., Eckenrode, J. & Silverman, D. (2006). Self-injurious behavior in a college population. Pediatrics, 117(6). 1939-1948.

Whitlock, J.L., Powers, J.L., Eckenrode, J.(2006).The virtual cutting edge: Adolescent self-injury and the Internet. Special Issue on Children, Adolescents and the Internet, Developmental Psychology. 42(3): 407- 417.

Surko, M., Pasti, L., Whitlock, J.L., Benson, D. (2006). Development of New York State outcome indicators for adolescent well-being. Journal of Public Health Management and Practice Supplement.

Whitlock, J.L. (2006). Youth perceptions of life at school: Contextual correlates of school connectedness in adolescence. Applied Developmental Science, 10(1).

Whitlock, J.L., & Hamilton, S. F. (2003). The role of youth surveys in youth development initiatives. Applied Developmental Science, 7(1).

Swisher, R. and Whitlock, J.L. (2003). Neighborhood contributions to community youth development. Pp. 216-238 in The Youth Development Handbook: Coming of Age in American Communities, edited by S. Hamilton and M. A. Hamilton. Thousand Oakes: Sage.