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Community Living with Mental Illness: A Sensory Health Initiative (2025-2026)

This project team investigated how sensory processing challenges affect the ability of adults with serious mental illness (SMI) to live independently and maintain stable housing. The team sought to address a key gap in mental health care: the lack of screening tools that help providers identify sensory and daily living challenges that can interfere with successful community integration, independent living and overall well-being.

Over the past year, undergraduate students, occupational therapy graduate students and faculty leaders conducted extensive interviews with key stakeholders and analyzed the resulting data using a participatory, community-based research approach. Their findings revealed a significant gap in mental health practice: providers often lack tools and frameworks to recognize sensory processing difficulties, despite their substantial impact on daily functioning. The research also highlighted that sensory challenges can cause pain and distress during routine activities such as cooking, cleaning and personal hygiene. These experiences are frequently misunderstood as a lack of motivation rather than barriers to independent living.

Using these findings, the team developed three stakeholder-specific screening tools designed for adults with SMI, caregivers and community mental health providers. The project advanced understanding of how sensory health influences community integration and identified previously overlooked aspects of lived experience among individuals with SMI. By creating tools that can help providers better recognize and address sensory challenges, the team laid the groundwork for future pilot testing and broader implementation efforts aimed at improving housing stability, independence and quality of life for adults living with serious mental illness.

Timing

Fall 2025 – Spring 2026

Team Outputs

Community Living with Mental Illness: A Sensory Health Initiative (Poster presentation at the Fortin Foundation Bass Connections Showcase, April 15, 2026)

Community Living with Mental Illness (Team Profile)

Developed sensory health screening tools

Academic credit available for fall and spring semesters

This Team in the News

How Do Sensory Challenges Shape Life With Serious Mental Illness?


See related teams, Community Living With Mental Illness: A Sensory Health Initiative (2024-2025) and Community Living with Mental Illness: A Sensory Health (2026-2027).

Team Leaders

  • Antoine Bailliard, School of Medicine, School of Medicine: Occupational Therapy Department, School of Medicine: Orthopaedic Surgery
  • MaryBeth Gallagher, School of Medicine, School of Medicine: Occupational Therapy Department, School of Medicine: Orthopaedic Surgery

Graduate Team Members

  • Sydney Fialkow, Occupational Therapy
  • Julie Gu, Occupational Therapy
  • Jessica LeBeau, Occupational Therapy
  • Betsy Li, Occupational Therapy
  • Brooklyn Pierce, Occupational Therapy
  • Emma Place, Occupational Therapy
  • Sofi Ramos Fortanelli

Undergraduate Team Members

  • Max Brodsky, Psychology (BS)
  • Mark DeMonte, Electrical & Computer Egr(BSE); Chemistry (AB2)
  • Chuwei Fan, DKU-Interdisciplinary Studies (BS)
  • Lucia Gonzalez-Revilla Sanchez, Neuroscience (BS); Global Health (AB2)
  • Jennifer Ren, Psychology (BS); Biology (BS2)
  • Erika Rispoli, Neuroscience (BS); Neuroscience (BS2)
  • Sarah Yim, Biology (BS)

Community Team Members

  • Thava Mahadevan, Center for Excellence in Community Mental Health
  • Lorna Moser, Institute for Best Practices -University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Themes