Teaching from an Interdisciplinary Perspective: Incorporating the Hearing Voices that are Distressing Simulation
See Dr. Michele P. Bratina reveal how hearing simulations of distressing voices can be instrumental for criminal justice professionals by increasing empathy when responding to people with psychosis.
Dr. Michele P. Bratina
The proportion of individuals with mental illness without service engagement is steadily increasing. For many, psychiatric crisis may lead to frequent encounters with criminal justice officials. Justice-involved persons often become ensnared in a complicated journey through disintegrated systems of care. I strive to integrate my practitioner experience into my teaching and scholarship. One of the major activities I have incorporated into my classes is a hearing distressing voices simulation. Students find the activity to be instrumental in increasing empathy, as they get a general understanding of the complexities in responding to individuals with psychosis as police or other criminal justice professionals.
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About the speaker
Dr. Michele P. Bratina
Dr. Michele P. Bratina has taught in the criminal justice field since 2005, teaching students in both undergraduate and graduate classes. Dr. Bratina has authored a diverse mix of publications, including book chapters, texts, encyclopedia entries and journal articles on topics such as human trafficking, psychiatric crisis intervention training with police, and the aging correctional population. Her exposure to multiple systems of care during her career has helped her to produce materials and to update existing materials as co-author of an introductory textbook.
In addition to teaching university classes, Dr. Bratina has taught part of a curriculum for police crisis intervention in south central Pennsylvania. During her career, she has been an instructor of record for the criminal justice program at the University of Little Rock, Arkansas, and in the criminology department at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania; Program Director of the criminal justice and justice studies programs at Keiser University in West Palm Beach; and an Assistant Professor at Shippensburg University and Associate Professor of Criminal Justice at West Chester University, both located in Pennsylvania.
In addition to her experience in academia, Dr. Bratina has worked for the Florida Department of Children and Families, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Program Office, as a Coordinator of Forensic and Children’s Mental Health. As a result of this experience, she has been a professional consultant for local and county-level agencies, pursuing data analysis and continued grant-funded programs pertaining to the management and care of justice-involved persons with mental illness and histories of trauma and addiction. Dr. Bratina has expertise in Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) training programs and has served as a consultant on several steering committees at various stages of program development and assessment.
She received the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences (ACJS) SAGE Junior Faculty Professional Development Teaching Award multiple times for significant promise as a teacher and is a recipient of the Northeastern Association of Criminal Justice Sciences (NEACJS) Founders Award in 2021. Dr. Bratina is currently serving as Region 1 Trustee for ACJS, and has previously served as Second Vice President, Vice President and President for the NEACJS. She has received other awards for excellence in mentoring, teaching and service contributions, including faculty of the year and an award for a human trafficking awareness event she directed at Shippensburg University.
Additionally, she has been awarded several scholarships and grants by the College of Business and Public Management and Provost’s Office at West Chester University for her research and scholarship endeavors. Dr. Bratina received her BS (Applied Behavioral Science) from the Pennsylvania State University-Harrisburg, her MA (Criminal Justice) at the University of Arkansas-Little Rock and her PhD from Indiana University of Pennsylvania. She also completed one year of study at the William H. Bowen School of Law, also in Little Rock, Arkansas. You can contact Dr. Bratina by email.