Many PACT projects are looking for volunteers! If you would be interested in helping with a research project, there are a variety of things you can do. See below for a description of projects, types of volunteer activities, and a list of who to contact. You can also sign up online. Thank you for your interest!
Project Name | Description | Contacts | Volunteer Responsibilities |
|---|---|---|---|
TEENS (Temperament, Evolving Emotions, Neuroscience Study) | We are currently examining the factors associated with anxiety development in adolescence. We do this through eye-tracking measures, surveys, observations of behavior, and measuring heart and brain activity. | Pact.teens1@gmail.com
717-439-3956 | Volunteers will be involved in helping with family visits to the PACT Center, enter data, help with recruitment and general office-based tasks. |
BaSICS (Building a Strong Identity and Coping Skills) | A youth-empowerment program designed to teach healthy coping skills to 11-12 year-old pre-adolescents. This intervention also empowers youth to make positive change in their communities by exploring their personal and social identity. | BaSICSpsu@gmail.com
English: 717-649-6904
Spanish: 717-649-6528 | Assisting with assessment visits with middle school students and/or parents–conducting interviews, collecting saliva samples, assisting with stress activity. Assisting with recruitment of potential research participants at various events such as back-to-school night. Assisting project staff with data management tasks such as data entry or coding observations. |
PARADE (Parents and Adolescents’ Reflections on African Americans Daily Experiences in Harrisburg) | To understand how place (i.e., residential neighborhood) and where families go (activity space) and culture shape the links between parenting and youth behaviors. | contextlab1@gmail.com
814-867-2352 | Potential Responsibilities: data collection (notetaker, interview assistant), data entry, child care |
Women and Infants’ Stress and Health (WISH) | WISH aims to understand how mothers and infants learn to regulate stress during pregnancy and the first few years of baby’s life. | PRISMLab@psu.edu | Volunteers will assist our research team in running visits with WISH families at PACT: setting up and participating in activities with mothers and their children, collecting saliva samples, helping to manage data from clinical interviews and video-recordings taken during the sessions. |
Coping with it All from Labor to Maternity (CALM) | CALM is studying how different childbirth preparation classes impact maternal well-being and mother-infant bonding using behavioral and brain measures. | PRISMLab@psu.edu | Volunteers will assist our research team in running visits with CALM families in their homes and at Penn State Health: video-recording mothers interacting with their children, helping run MRI sessions at Penn State Hershey, and if interested, there will be opportunities to learn the basics of MRI research and essential coding skills. |