Flora Cohen, LMSW is a doctoral student in the George Warren Brown School of Social Work.
Research Interests: global mental health, mental heath infrastructure development in low resource settings, community based rehabilitation, implementation science, and community based participatory research.
Contact: flora.cohen@wustl.edu
Research Experience: Flora is a doctoral student in social work and is in her final year at WUSTL. She is a former National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) T32 Pre-Doctoral Fellow. Her interest is in global mental health infrastructure development.
Her dissertation uses data from the Journey of Life, a psychosocial parenting intervention for refugees living in Uganda to explore the relationship between caregiver wellbeing and caregiving behaviors. She collected data through a USAID-funded program with TPO Uganda, a local organization that provides psychosocial services throughout Uganda. She is using mixed methods to analyze the effectiveness and implementation of the program.
Professional Experience: Flora is interested in culturally competent and decolonialist approaches to mental health implementation science in low-resource settings with populations who have had traumatic experiences. She has six years of experience as a clinical social worker with populations experiencing significant psychological distress, primarily with children and families.
Teaching Experience: Flora has extensive experience teaching and mentoring master’s of social work students in courses centered around global mental health, humanitarian health systems, and trauma treatment for children. She utilizes problem-based learning in the classroom, and is invested in supporting social work competencies for students.
Additional information: Flora received a Bachelor’s of Social Work from Temple University and a Master’s of Social Work from Columbia University. Flora has had varied experiences both clinically in the US and overseas. She loves traveling, biking, and her dog Herschel.
Recent Publications:
Cohen, F., Meyer, S.R., Seff, I., Bennouna, C., Allaf, C., & Stark, L (2022) Intersectionality: Experiences of gender socialization and socialization for Iraqi students resettled in the United States. Inter-agency Network for Education in Emergencies. 8(2), 111-38. https://doi.org/10/33682/1xf5-ef54
Cohen, F., Hermosilla, S., Knox, J., et al. (2021) Protocol for a Caregiver Psychosocial Support Intervention for Populations Affected by Displacement in Uganda. BMC Public Health, 21, 931. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-021-10921-7
Cohen, F. & Yaeger, L (2021) Task-shifting for refugee mental health and psychosocial support: a scoping review of services in humanitarian settings through the lens of RE-AIM. Implementation Research and Practice. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F2633489521998790
Cohen, F. (2020) Ecologies of care for serious mental illness in Uganda: A scoping review. Global Social Welfare. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40609-020-00193-1
Stark, L., Seff, I., Cohen, F., Aldrich, J., & Allaf, C. (2020) Stressful life events and their unique associations with psychosocial outcomes: A gendered analysis among high school adolescents. Global Social Welfare. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40609-020-00179-z