From the outset, LETS has included the study of the effectiveness of the LETS Clubs with students and communities.  We are particularly interested when LETS Club members share stories of how LETS has helped their schools and communities with issues like bullying and talking to family members about mental health concerns.  These stories inspire us and foster our determination to study the impact of the LETS program on stigma, so we can improve our youths' experience with mental health and mental disorders.  

Dr. Bennett Leventhal (left) and Dr. Stephen Hinshaw (center) are leading experts in stigma, children, and mental health research.  Pictured here with LETS Founder Philippe Fontilea (right) at UC Berkeley's famous Sather Tower, the LETS researchers are committed to measuring outcomes from LETS's earliest work in order to maintain accountability, refine our goals, establish best practices, and learn more about how stigma affects children.

Biographical Sketch: Stephen P. Hinshaw, Ph.D.

Stephen Hinshaw is Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, where he served as Department Chair from 2004-2011, and Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at UC San Francisco.  He received his B.A. from Harvard (1974, summa cum laude), and his doctorate in clinical psychology from UCLA (1983).  After a post-doctoral fellowship at the Langley Porter Institute (UCSF), he joined the Berkeley faculty.  His work focuses on developmental psychopathology: peer and family relationships, neuropsychological risk factors, pharmacologic and psychological interventions for children with ADHD, assessment and evaluation, conceptual and definitional issues, mental health problems in teenage girls, the stigmatization of mental illness, and international training efforts.  He has directed summer research camps and conducted longitudinal studies for boys and (more recently) for girls with ADHD and related disorders, having received over $14 million in NIH funding.  Hinshaw has authored over 225 articles, chapters, and reviews plus 7 books, including The Mark of Shame: Stigma of Mental Illness and an Agenda for Change (Oxford University Press, 2007), and The Triple Bind: Saving our Teenage Girls from Today's Pressures (Random House, 2009).  Two more books are in preparation (ADHD and public policy; a memoir of growing up in a home with severe mental illness).  He is editor of Psychological Bulletin, the most cited journal in the field of general psychology, and is a fellow of the Association for Psychological Science, the American Psychological Association, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).  He received the Distinguished Scientific Contribution in Psychology Award from the California State Psychological Association (2009) and the Distinguished Teaching Award, College of Letters and Sciences, UC Berkeley (2001).  His 24-lecture series for the Teaching Company, entitled "Origins of the Human Mind," was released in 2010.

Biographical Sketch: Bennett Leventhal, M.D.

Bennett Leventhal is an internationally renowned child and adolescent psychiatrist who has held academic appointments and leadership positions at the nation's top medical schools, state and federal commissions, and national psychiatric and medical societies.  Dr. Leventhal is the Deputy Director of the Nathan Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research.  He is also serves as an Irving B. Harris Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Emeritus, The University of Chicago; and as a Professor in the Department of Disability and Human Development, The University of Illinois at Chicago.  Dr. Leventhal has received recognition for his leadership and expertise in fostering career development, training programs, and collaborative research networks with an emphasis on molecular genetics, community service, and public health.  His efforts have led to the creation of nationally prominent clinical research programs that continue to shape how we study childhood psychiatric disorders.  "LETS is an extraordinary opportunity to change the face of child and adolescent mental health," says Dr. Leventhal.  "By fostering understanding and compassion, LETS will allow our youth to create and share a new vision of how to end stigma and bring hope for the treatment and acceptance of psychiatric illness."