Valerie Noel

• PhD
• Research Associate at Douglas Mental Health University Institute

Large-scale initiatives to expand evidence-based practices are often poorly implemented and rarely endure. The purpose of this study was to identify the perceived barriers and facilitators to sustainment of an evidence-based supported employment program, Individual Placement and Support (IPS). Within a 2-year prospective study of sustainment among...

Youth with developmental and psychiatric disabilities encounter significant vocational challenges, even when they receive supported employment services. We examined the barriers to employment for 280 transition-age youth with disabilities enrolled in supported employment in eight community rehabilitation centers. Employment team members identified...

Key Points Question: Do reach and timeliness increase after existing primary and/or community youth mental health services are enhanced? Findings: In this cohort study of 4519 youths, the number of referrals and the timeliness of the initial evaluation and interventions increased over time after youth mental health services were enhanced. Youths...

Mental health clinicians, clients, and researchers have shown keen interest in using technology to support mental health recovery. However, technology has not been routinely integrated into clinical care. Clients use a wide range of digital tools and apps to help manage their mental health, but clinicians rarely discuss this form of self-management...

Background: Mental health recovery refers to an individual’s experience of gaining a sense of personal control, striving towards one’s life goals, and meeting one’s needs. Although people with serious mental illness own and use electronic devices for general purposes, knowledge of their current use and interest in future use for supporting mental h...

Introduction Young people with a first episode of psychosis can achieve full remission with prompt treatment. Throughout Canada, early psychosis intervention programs are implementing policies to ensure timely delivery of services. One of Canada’s first early intervention services, the Prevention and Early Intervention for Psychosis program, set th...

Myriad digital tools exist to support mental health but there are multiple barriers to using these tools in routine care. This study aimed to assess the feasibility of an intervention incorporating a support role to help the clinical team identify and use technology to promote recovery. The technology specialist intervention is 3 months in duration...

Objective In many Indigenous communities, youth mental health services are inadequate. Six Indigenous communities participating in the ACCESS Open Minds (AOM) network implemented strategies to transform their youth mental health services. This report documents the demographic and clinical presentations of youth accessing AOM services at these Indig...

We evaluated an intensive, integrated treatment program for men with serious mental illness and co-occurring substance use disorder, which incorporated several evidence-based interventions. Independent researchers rated transcripts from quality improvement interviews to examine recovery in five key domains: housing, education/employment, family rel...

Objective: The authors sought to evaluate the interrater reliability and feasibility of the First-Episode Psychosis Services Fidelity Scale-Revised (FEPS-FS-R) for remote assessment of first-episode psychosis programs according to the coordinated specialty care model. Methods: The authors used the FEPS-FS-R to assess the fidelity of 36 first-epi...

Background Child anxiety sensitivity (AS) is measured almost exclusively using the Childhood Anxiety Sensitivity Index (CASI). Yet, in the context of significant discrepancies regarding the CASI factors and how they are scored and reported, it remains unclear whether the CASI reliably and validly assesses the purported multifactorial AS construct....

As the potential of smartphone apps and sensors for healthcare and clinical research continues to expand, there is a concomitant need for open, accessible, and scalable digital tools. While many current app platforms offer useful solutions for either clinicians or patients, fewer seek to serve both and support the therapeutic relationship between t...

Background: There is growing interest in using technology-based tools to support mental health recovery. Yet, despite evidence suggesting widespread access to technology among people with mental illnesses, interest in using technology to support mental health, and effectiveness of technology-based tools developed by researchers, such tools have no...

BACKGROUND Mental health recovery denotes an individual’s experience of gaining a sense of personal control, striving towards one’s life goals, and meeting one’s needs. Although people with serious mental illness own and use electronic devices for general purposes, knowledge of their current use and interest in future use for supporting mental heal...

Parent-youth and peer relationship inventories based on attachment theory measure communication, trust, and alienation, yet sibling relationships have been overlooked. We developed the Sibling Attachment Inventory and evaluated its psychometric properties in a sample of 172 youth ages 10–14 years. We adapted the 25-item Sibling Attachment Inventory...

BACKGROUND There is growing interest in using technology-based tools to support mental health recovery. Yet, despite evidence suggesting widespread access to technology among people with mental illnesses, interest in using technology to support mental health, and effectiveness of technology-based tools developed by researchers, such tools have not...

People who abuse substances in order to reduce distressing thoughts, uncomfortable physical sensations, and negative emotions, inadvertently increase these stress-related sensations. Deficits in emotion regulation skills, including self-evaluation skills, may have a role in determining this relationship. We examined the mediating role of self-evalu...

Objective: Implementations of evidence-based mental health practices often disappear quickly, and few studies have examined sustainment. Since 2001, the Individual Placement and Support (IPS) learning community has promoted dissemination, implementation, sustainment, and expansion of IPS by using multiple strategies: online training, in-person tra...

Objective: Integrated treatment for people with co-occurring mental illness and substance use disorder would be enhanced by a simple, recovery-oriented instrument to plan treatment and monitor progress toward dual recovery. This paper describes the development of a clinical instrument, the WestBridge Dual Recovery Inventory, and presents a prelimi...

Background: As the concept of recovery has become increasingly popular in mental health treatment settings, professionals have attempted to measure recovery as an outcome. Aims: This article reviews the history of the concept of recovery and recent attempts to measure recovery as an outcome. Results: The concept of recovery, as developed by people...

Anxiety sensitivity (AS) is most often described in its multidimensional and hierarchical form, consisting of three lower order factors: fear of physical symptoms, fear of publically observable symptoms, and fear of cognitive dyscontrol. The lower order factors of AS have been shown to be differentially predictive of panic disorder, social anxiety,...

This study assessed the predictive relationship between catastrophizing and depressive symptoms, when controlling for anxiety, amongst 231 third-, fifth-, and seventh-grade children. Hopelessness theory of depression posits that the diathesis of consistently generating catastrophic inferences to the consequences of a negative event can lead to hope...

Progressive Muscle Relaxation (PMR) is an established treatment for the reduction of anxiety, and has been delivered via live instruction, audiotape, videotape, and immersive video. Although previous research has compared some of these modes of PMR delivery, this is the first study to compare live instruction with immersive video. Participants comp...

Conflicting findings exist regarding (1) whether anxiety sensitivity (AS) is a construct distinct from anxiety in children and (2) the specific nature of the role of AS in child anxiety. This study uses meta-analytic techniques to (1) determine whether youth (ages 6-18 years) have been reported to experience AS, (2) examine whether AS differentiate...

Anxiety sensitivity (AS) is defined as the fear of anxiety-related symptoms (e.g., a fast beating heart) and the consequences that may follow from these symptoms (e.g., a heart attack). Recently, child AS has been examined in relation to parental AS and parental anxiety to elucidate potential parental contributions. Given inconsistent findings to d...