Meet Our 2020-21 Scholarship Recipients
Meet our scholarship recipients for 2020-21!
Jeremy Bang
Jeremy Bang is a doctoral student at Seattle University in the Psychiatric and Mental Health Nurse Practitioner program. He has worked as a welder, waiter, and restaurant manager. In each place, his ability to connect with people and hold difficult truths highlighted an empathic quality that he wanted to build on with his education. In these environments, he saw how hard it was for many to choose healthy coping skills and how many turned instead to substance use, numbing, and jaded worldviews.
Today he is a nurse on a coronavirus assessment team focused on testing people in homeless shelters and encampments. He is providing direct patient care, education about SARS-CoV-2, precepting undergraduate nursing students, and working with his supervisors to ensure the safety and sustainability of his team and their work.
It is his goal to use his life experience to connect with and better understand future clients. He wants to work with people experiencing homelessness, depression, and substance use disorders. He is particularly passionate about working with men to broaden their emotional vocabulary, normalize sensitivity and nurturing behaviors, and encourage healthy and safe relationships.
Natalie Robbins
Natalie Robbins a Doctoral of Nursing (DNP) student enrolled in her first year in the Pacific Lutheran University Psychiatric and Mental Health Nurse Practitioner program.
From a young age, Natalie learned the impact that addiction and mental illness can have on a family. She also learned that mental health and addiction are topics that most do not like to talk about but impact everyone at some point in their lives. Whether it is something they personally struggle with or something a loved one battles with daily.
As a nurse, Natalie has worked in a variety of settings, including inpatient psychiatry, inpatient substance abuse treatment, the emergency room for psychiatric stabilization, and outpatient as a psychiatric nurse care manager. She is dedicating her professional life to serving the disadvantaged and underserved.
Her educational goal is to implement a research project that improves the care coordination of the patient with serious mental illness and chronic medical conditions. With hopes of creating an educational program that will decrease stigma, decrease hospital bed days, and bridge the gap between mental health nursing and medical nursing staff.
Teresa Robinson
Teresa Robinson is a student in the Post Masters - Doctor of Nursing Practice, Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner program (PMHNP) at Washington State University - Tri-Cities. She graduates in the Spring of 2022.
Teresa currently works full-time as the Patient Safety Program Manager at a hospital in the Tri-Cities. She hopes to secure a job through the hospital’s Behavioral Health clinic and work with clients in the newly established clinic-based collaborative care program. Teresa’s husband is a100% disabled, retired Army Officer, and together they have a blended family with eight children. She has experienced firsthand what it is like to care for family members suffering from conditions like PTSD, depression, anxiety, and other mental illnesses. It is no surprise that a long-term goal she holds is to specialize in the areas of working with Veterans or youth experiencing mental health issues.
Teresa had the opportunity to return to college after her children entered school. She obtained her BSN from WSU Tri-Cities in 2011, and it was through her BSN courses that she found a passion for psychiatric nursing. She continued her nursing career, obtaining her MSN from Gonzaga University in Health Care Administration; however, she knew that psychiatric nursing was her passion and applied for the DNP-PMHNP program in 2018.
The COVID-19 pandemic has created a time of uncertainty for all. Frontline caregivers are experiencing higher rates of depression, anxiety, and insomnia. Teresa is interested in providing a program at a local hospital that will provide strategies for frontline caregivers and health care workers to counteract the stressors and challenges they experience every day. The proposal would be adapted from a trauma-informed care program and would promote a culture of safety and mindfulness exercises.
Iman Yunis is a DNP student at Seattle University’s Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner program. Iman’s passion for advanced psychiatric nursing was sparked after leading a community-based participatory research study investigating the perceptions of mental health and barriers to accessing mental health services among the Somali community in King County. Her study uncovered that there is a widespread negative perception of mental illness that has created a stigma around receiving mental health care.
As an advanced psychiatric nursing leader, Iman hopes to break the barriers of social stigma, limited mental health awareness, and accessibility so that underserved populations are able to access and receive equitable mental healthcare. Iman believes to advance the goals and growth of the communities she works with it must be done through fostering collaboration, providing support, and empowerment.