Brendan Rich
Chair | Professor University of Florida
- Gainesville FL
Brendan Rich studies access to mental health services for youth using school-based interventions in economically marginalized communities.
Biography
Areas of Expertise
Media Appearances
Building Resilience Where It Matters Most: A Spotlight on Resilience Across Borders
Bright Initiatives online
2025-08-04
One of the most powerful things we can do to change the future is to equip young people with the skills they need to bounce back, grow strong, and thrive — especially when the odds are stacked against them. Founded by clinical psychologist Mary K. Alvord, this Resilience Across Borders is dismantling systemic barriers to mental health care by bringing resilience-building programs directly into schools and afterschool settings.
Kids and Teens Need Resilience
Pew online
2023-12-08
Put simply, resilience is the ability to deal with stress and adapt to big and small challenges throughout life. It involves using various characteristics and skills to positively adapt to traumatic situations, natural disasters, social struggles, learning disabilities, and mental and emotional disorders. Children in particular need resilience skills to meet the hardships they encounter daily in order to become well-adjusted, successful adults.
UNICEF report: Peer-to-peer violence in schools is pervasive around the world
New England Psychologist online
2018-11-09
School is a safe place — but only for half of the world’s students. A new UNICEF analysis finds that half of students aged 13 to 15 globally report experiencing peer-to-peer violence in and around school. That’s about 150 million teens, according to the report “An Everyday Lesson: #ENDviolence in Schools,” which outlines a variety of ways students face violence in and around the classroom.
Mary Karapetian Alvord’s pursuit of resilience
American Psychological Association online
2018-07-27
In the 1980s, Mary Karapetian Alvord organized workshops for parents who were adopting children from Russia. Some of those children had had harrowing early experiences that might have destroyed them, but in many cases, they were thriving. Alvord, a clinical psychologist who treats mostly children and adolescents using cognitive–behavioral therapy in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C., wanted to understand why that was.
To Teach Kids To Handle Tough Emotions, Some Schools Take Time Out For Group Therapy
NPR radio
2018-05-23
At Cresthaven Elementary School, some fifth-graders get an intensive 12 weeks of such training, a course called the Resilience Builder Program. Created by psychologist Mary Alvord, it's a form of group therapy designed to help students who are struggling with trauma or cognitive disorders — or everyday anxiety caused by things like bullying or moving schools..
Social
Articles
Attitudes About Evidence-Based Practice Impacted by School Mental Health Provider and School Characteristics
Evidence-Based Practice in Child and Adolescent Mental HealthGodovich, et al.
2026-06-24
The current study assessed the role of both provider-level and school-level demographic characteristics in predicting school mental health providers’ attitudes toward evidence-based practice broadly and toward a specific intervention.
Resilience-Based School Intervention: Improved Classroom Engagement and Associated Academic Benefits
Adversity and Resilience ScienceRich, et al.
2026-04-06
Prior research finds that the Resilience Builder Program® (RBP), a group intervention implemented in schools with youth with psychosocial difficulties, increased students’ classroom engagement and academic motivation. The current study expanded on previous findings to determine if this improved academic engagement was associated with improvement in other related domains.
Effectiveness of the Resilience Builder Program® in private practice and school settings
Discover PsychologyDonohue, et al.
2025-08-25
Children of color from economically marginalized communities face significant barriers to accessing mental health treatment. Therefore, it is critical to identify interventions that are effective across race, ethnicity and socioeconomic status. This study examined the effectiveness of the Resilience Builder Program® (RBP), a manualized intervention for children with psychosocial deficits across a cohort of predominantly racial/ethnic minoritized children from lower-SES families and predominantly White children from higher-SES families.
