Global Nursing Fellowship Program: Community Mental Health in Chennai, India

Presented By

Alison Ercole and LaKeetra M. Josey

Presentation Date

04/11/2018

Affiliation

Alison Ercole, MSN, PMHNP-BC, CRNP / LaKeetra M. Josey, PhD, CRNP, PMHNP-BC

In January 2018, Penn Nursing created a new opportunity for our graduates to engage globally – as Global Nursing Fellows. Alison Ercole, a 2014 graduate of our Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurse Practitioner program, was selected as our first fellow. She worked in India for three months to strengthen a curriculum for training Community Mental Health Workers (CMHWs). Dr. Wendy Grube, Penn Nursing’s Interim Director for the Center for Global Women’s Health, designed the program in collaboration with her colleagues at The Banyan, a leading mental health foundation in Chennai, India. They hope this will serve as a prototype for scaling up on a national level.

Throughout the fellowship, Alison had access to Penn Nursing faculty mentorship through Dr. LaKeetra Josey.  Alison’s work has been highly praised by Dr. Vandana Gopikumar, Co-Founder of The Banyan and The Banyan Academy of Leadership in Mental Health, and the Recipient of the 2018 Penn Nursing Renfield Foundation Award for Global Women’s Health.