The University of Notre Dame recently opened its Veldman Family Psychology Clinic in South Bend’s East Bank area. They’re inviting the public to an open house on Friday from 2:30 to 5 p.m.
The university has built the clinic with a gift from the Veldman family, who founded South Bend-based Tire Rack. They say it will do two important things: Bolster research and provide a cutting edge training ground for graduate students, while giving much-needed mental health care to youth and adults in the community.
Amanda Zelechoski is the clinic’s director of clinical services.
“The psychology department has done a number of clinical services for the community over the years but the Veldman building and the gift allows us to expand that really, really significantly and to do it at low cost or no cost in many cases," Zelechoski says.
Zelechoski says the university has been working closely with local mental health agencies to learn how they can help meet community needs. They’ve placed the clinic on Hill Street near Oaklawn, Epworth and the Casie Center.
“So we can take faculty studies that they’ve been doing on different interventions and then, right away, OK, we’re seeing in the research that this works. Alright, let’s try to bring this to scale in the clinic now and get these services out of the lab and into the community.”
