ETSU professor Diana Morelen gave a lecture titled “Caring for Caretakers in the Time of COVID” during a Dessert with the Experts event on Oct. 13.
The talk centered around supporting caregivers who may be stuggling during the pandemic.
“Whenever we’re stressed or encountering hardship, it is so important to have relationships that support us and to feel like somebody gets it, somebody there who can understand and be empathic with us,” said Morelen.
During the event, Morelen spoke about Mom Power, a 10 week evidence-based therapeutic parenting intervention developed at the University of Michigan. Mom Power supports mothers who are parenting without support or struggling with mental health issues or facing other difficult situations that add onto the stress of childcare.
Morelen has been working since 2017 to implement this program in the Appalachian Highlands region and is the program director and primary investigator over the research program.
Morelen also spoke about the importance of empathy during these unprecedented times.
Morelen said she was approached to do the Dessert with the Experts talk after Denise Asbury, the director of development for the ETSU College of Arts and Sciences saw an article written by Morelen about assisting those who are caring for children and other people during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Morelen began her work in psychology and started researching parenting and the role that parents serve as caretakers for their children. Morelen says she focuses her research studies on creating, cultivating and sustaining healthy relationships to help promote resilience in the face of trauma, stress and adversity in the world of caretaking.
Morelen is also involved in ETSU’s Strong Building Resilience through ACEs Informed Networking Institute.
“[The Strong BRAIN Institue is] this beautiful interdisciplinary group of faculty across all academic colleges at ETSU who raise awareness about adverse childhood experience and trauma and helping to promote a culture of resilience at ETSU,” said Morelen.
