The Crown Within, Inc. aims to engage, educate, and equip Black and Brown girls ages 9-17 in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex area and beyond. Through empowering programs, service initiatives, and scholarship opportunities, participants gain insight and cultivate community around our core tenets: Mental Health, Physical Health, Leadership Development, and Financial Prosperity. The Crown Within, Inc. encourages young women of color to take their throne with confidence while learning the true essence of what it means to be a queen in today’s society. Here, we believe that Black and Brown women are the inspirational blueprint and the expert of their stories. Our mission is to showcase the regality of our girls as we challenge them to live fearlessly with purpose.

RWJ Project

– Assisted on a qualitative coding team to explore the institutional, policy and systemic changes needed to make organizations and institutions more welcoming and inclusive. (The goal of this project is to inform future funding and ongoing programs to create and sustain change.)

Dr. Idia Thurston’s CHANGE Lab

My most empowering educational experiences have been as a Research Assistant for Dr. Idia Thurston. Under her direction, I have had wonderful opportunities to participate in impactful community based research. In the Challenging Health Inequity in Adolescents & Nurturing Global Empowerment (the CHANGE lab) I have actively contributed towards coding processes, participant recruitment, preparing posters, grant support activity, and manuscripts. It has been an invaluable experience to play a role in developing culturally-responsive and strength-based interventions to promote health, wellness, and self-empowerment in the Houston and Brazos Valley.

Community Partners

Duties: communicated with non profit organizations in the Houston metropolitan area; conducted interviews with community leaders to evaluate the most prominent needs and service possibilities for mental health/wellness

Mental Health Toolkit

Duties: researching evidence based strategies to implement within the community; examining existing literature to assist in developing impactful virtual programs for community leaders to follow on a larger scale

Parenting Through Hardships (PaTH)

Duties: processing qualitative data analysis, assisted in examining the relationship between youth resilience and maternal hardships; utilized consensual qualitative research (CQR)

Additional Research Experience Listed On CV

About The Initiative

With the approval of my school’s district administration and working closely with the District Counselor, I developed and created my city’s first student-led grief support group, Healing Hearts. This program utilized evidence-based activities which focused on the impact of losing loved ones for high school students. Starting as only a feasibility study, this initiative has been adopted and highly recommended for other schools to use as well.

Community Research & Outreach Intern: NAMI Brazos Valley (Ongoing)

4 hour educational workshop designed specifically for women of color to promote wellness, build community, and educate participants on how to prioritize their mental health:

Sessions include-

Mental Health at Work

Managing Stress & Anxiety

Self Care 101 

Through the Texas A&M Psychology Club: First Mental Health Awareness Day Program (Started in 2019)

An annual mental health day program held in Texas A&M’s Rudder plaza including:

Distributing tangible mental health resources to students

Advocating for campus-wide messaging to destigmatize mental health

Hosting interactive activities focused on self care  

Aggies Reaching Aggies Peer Educator (2021)

One of six students selected to be peer educators for Aggies Reaching Aggies, a suicide prevention program that exists to reduce stigma and create suicide awareness on campus and beyond

After a week of intensive training, I am now prepared to educate and equip others with tools to support a peer that may be considering suicide or dealing with a mental health crisis.

It is rewarding to encourage others to become gatekeepers! Request a training for your organization or department here: