Excellence in Outreach Award
Katey Franklin
Katey Franklin, assistant professor in the College of Education, Health and Human Development’s Department of Counseling and director of the Center for Mental Health Research and Recovery, is the recipient of the Excellence in Outreach Award. The award recognizes a faculty member with significant achievements in outreach, an established body of engagement-related scholarship, and a record of collaboration outside the academic community to address challenges or opportunities that align with MSU’s land-grant mission. Sponsored by the Office of Academic Affairs, the Outreach and Engagement Council and MSU Extension, the award includes a $2,000 honorarium.
Franklin engages in significant outreach to understand and enhance Montanans’ mental health and well-being, has an established body of outreach-related scholarship, and collaborates with numerous organizations statewide. She has also advised and provided supervision for more than 270 students as a school counseling track leader and counseling curriculum instructor.
Among other efforts, Franklin is the school liaison for MSU on the Rural Mental Health Preparation Pathway grant shared by MSU and the University of Montana. In this role, she partners with rural school communities to place and supervise graduate counseling students who provide K-12 counseling and clinical services to Montana rural school communities. Often, she places students in rural schools where counseling services did not previously exist. She has also conducted community needs assessments in Park, Sweetgrass, Madison and Custer counties and works closely with rural school districts to develop systems and policies that protect and enhance the mental health and well-being of the school and local community.
Franklin also works collaboratively with organizations, community partners and entities that are outside the academic community to mutually address community mental health and well-being challenges. Franklin is a member of the Montana School Counseling Association board of directors, where she serves as the ethics committee chair for the state, collaborates with a local dude ranch to provide counseling services, works with law enforcement to provide trauma-informed training to rural communities, and partners with nonprofit organizations to provide free behavioral and mental health resources to the Montana public.
In addition, Franklin is the principal investigator for a project focused on workforce development in school-based mental health positions and is working collaboratively in her counseling department to develop an online training program for school counseling at MSU. This online school counseling program aims to support individuals seeking a master’s degree in school counseling in Montana and the Rocky Mountain West without necessitating relocation from their home communities