Sandra L. Momper

Sandra L. Momper has 20 years of mental health experience with American Indian and African American families as well as community organizing experience. Her aim is to reduce health disparities, provide culturally appropriate interventions for AI/ANs and impact policy changes regarding funding opportunities for physical and mental health and substance abuse treatment for AI/AN youth and families. She is the 2015 recipient of the University of Michigan Harold R. Johnson Diversity Service Award.

Professor Momper is an enrolled member of the Bad River Band of the Lake Superior Tribe of Chippewa Indians. Her dissertation research on Maternal Gambling, Parenting in the Home Environment, and Child Outcomes in Native American Families was funded by the NIMH. She moved to Michigan in 2006 for a NIDA funded Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship at the University of Michigan Substance Abuse Research Center (UMSARC) where she studied substance abuse from a multidisciplinary perspective. While at UMSARC she received funds from the University of Michigan Tobacco Research Network to conduct a study entitled Potential Association of Tobacco Use and Gambling among Native American Populations. UMSARC and the Vivian A. and James L. Curtis School of Social Work Research and Training Center funded a study entitled OxyContin Use and Abuse on a Great Lakes Indian Reservation: Prevalence and Treatment Barriers. In 2008 she received a NIDA funded Diversity Supplement and was an investigator on a study of Ecologic Stressors, PTSD, and Drug Use in Detroit. Since 2007 she has been active at American Indian Health and Family Services of Southeast Michigan, Inc. (AIHFS). She was the Co-PI and Evaluator for AIHFS’ Circles of Care Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) grant, the Inter-tribal Council of Michigan’s Systems of Care Expansion Planning SAMHSA grant, and AIHFS’ Garrett Lee Smith State/Tribal Youth Suicide Prevention SAMHSA grant. She is presently the Co-PI and Evaluator for the Expansion of Comprehensive Community Mental Health Services for Children and their Families SAMHSA grant in collaboration with AIHFS and the Detroit Wayne Mental Health Authority entitled When We Work Together, Then We Are Wise “Pii Maamwinokiyaang, Miidash Nibwaakaayaang.” She also is the Co-PI and Evaluator for AIHFS’ second GLS SAMHSA grant entitled “Manidookewigashkibjigan” Sacred Bundle: R.E.S.P.E.C.T. Project. Her research interests include gambling, substance abuse, PTSD, suicide, mental health, and health disparities among rural and urban American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) youth and families.