Dr. Chardée Galán is a clinical psychologist interested in making mental healthcare equitably accessible to youth of color. Her work specifically focuses on why inequities in access to mental health services exist, as well as the unique mental health needs youth of color may have due to racism. These contributing factors include a lack of cultural awareness in the approaches, measurements, and interventions used by researchers. Dr. Galán believes a “researcher as expert” model is not best suited for work with communities of color, thus values collaborating with the communities she aims to help at all stages of the research process.
Dr. Galán joined Penn State University in the Fall of 2023 as an Assistant Professor in the Child Clinical area of the Psychology department, previously working as an Assistant Professor at the University of Southern California. Before arriving at PSU, she made a point to meet with PACT Directors about joining the PACT mission. She is grateful to previous and current PACT leaders for the work they have done to establish strong relationships between Penn State and the Harrisburg community and is excited to begin fostering her own. Dr. Galán is interested in fostering strong relationships within the Latino/a/x community in Harrisburg, as this is the population her current work is interested in.
Dr. Galán brings multiple research projects with her to PSU. For one, she will focus on further developing a novel intervention to strengthen racial social competence in Latino/a/x youth and families through video-based feedback. Dr. Galán hopes to receive funding from the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities for this project. She is also working on developing the first measure of race-based traumatic stress for youth of color. She hopes to further our understanding of the differences between race-based traumatic stress and the traditional conceptualization of post-traumatic stress. In addition to these two projects, Dr. Galán is collaborating with fellow psychologists on the Racial, Ethnic, and Cultural Healing (REACH) program. The REACH Program aims to help youth of color understand and cope with emotional distress caused by racism, specifically through empowered decision making. Lastly, she will soon be piloting One Talk at a Time – Anti-Racism, an extension of the original racial socialization competency program entitled One Talk at a Time. The parenting program Dr. Galán will be piloting differs from the original by targeting White parents of 10–14-year-old White youth to strengthen anti-racist racial socialization practices.
Throughout her work, Dr. Galán values the contributions communities of color can provide to research concerning their livelihoods. While community-engaged research often does not meet the timelines set by academic institutions, her biggest piece of advice to those doing this work is to never lose sight of the ‘why’ behind the work. We are happy to have Dr. Galán joining us at PACT.
