About Us
The Centerstone Research Institute (CRI) is a private, not-for-profit company dedicated to improving health care delivery through the marriage of research and information technology. Based in Tennessee and Indiana, CRI works with the community mental health centers of Centerstone to conduct clinically relevant research and provide high quality services to over 70,000 individuals with mental illness. For decades, CRI researchers and affiliated community mental health centers have conducted hundreds of service and clinical studies, securing more than $50 million in federal and private funding. The results from these studies serve people across the globe, furnishing behavioral healthcare professionals with new insights and innovative treatment options.
Jennifer Lockman, MS, is the evaluator for the Tennessee Lives Count Juvenile Justice grant (TLC-JJ, 2008-2011) and has worked at the Centerstone Research Institute since 2007. TLC-JJ provided Question, Persuade, and Refer (QPR) training to 3500+ community members who have contact with at-risk youth. Over 600 juvenile justice staff participated in Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training (ASIST). Additionally, 250 youth living in residential homes received the Jason Foundation's A Promise for Tomorrow suicide awareness and peer referral training. The evaluation focused primarily on ASIST using a longitudinal, pre/post/6-month follow-up design. Focus groups were conducted with juvenile justice staff to examine effectiveness and ways to improve training. Outcomes and lessons learned have been integrated into the Gatekeeper Training Implementation Support System presented on this website. Additionally, outcomes have been used to create the Shield of Care Suicide Prevention Training, a system-focused model addressing the unique needs of staff working with youth in juvenile justice. Since 2008, the TLC-JJ team has presented data at the American Evaluation Association and American Association of Suicidology annual meetings.
James Schut, PhD, former Senior Program Evaluator with the Centerstone Research Institute (CRI) from 2006 to 2009, works currently as Associate Professor of Graduate Psychology at Trevecca Nazarene University (Nashville, TN). Dr. Schut was lead evaluator of the original Tennessee Lives Count project (2005-2008), a SAMHSA-funded evaluation of Question, Persuade, and Refer (QPR) involving 9,600+ pre-test/post-test gatekeeper surveys. As part of this project, CRI also received Enhanced Evaluation funding through an inter-agency agreement between the CDC and SAMHSA. This project supported nearly 600 six-month follow-ups and a qualitative study of helping behaviors as they occur naturally in the child welfare system. The Enhanced Evaluation led to another inter-agency agreement to produce the Gatekeeper Training Implementation Support System as an example of "actionable knowledge." Every year since 2007, Dr. Schut and his CRI colleagues have presented data on evaluation of gatekeeper training at the annual conference of the American Association of Suicidology.
Christina VanRegenmorter, MSW, has worked with Centerstone Research Institute since 2008. Before that, she was a direct service provider and gatekeeper in a residential setting. In 2007, she received QPR training and used it to help three youth that were suicidal. As Communications and Policy Coordinator, Ms. VanRegenmorter works to disseminate CRI’s research findings to a variety of audiences--from direct care practitioners to community mental health center leaders to federal policy makers. She graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Hope College in Holland, MI, with a BA in English. She received her MS in Social Work with a focus on evidence-based practice across systems at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.
Jason H. Padgett, MPA, MSM, currently serves as the Task Force Liaison for the Secretariat of the National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention under the auspices of the Suicide Prevention Resource Center (SPRC). Padgett previously served as the Tennessee Lives Count (TLC) Project Coordinator where he managed daily operations including management of staff, coordination of training sessions, inter-agency networking, and development of a suicide prevention curriculum for juvenile justice staff. He worked closely with the Centerstone Research Institute TLC evaluation team and assisted in developing the GTISS. Previously, Padgett worked for the Suicide Prevention Action Network (SPAN USA) where he directed two national programs aimed at advancing public awareness and public policy and traveled the country delivering the SPRC’s “Strategic Planning for Suicide Prevention: Core Competencies in Community Prevention Workshop”. He has also worked as the Suicide Prevention Program Administrator for the state of Kentucky. But most importantly, he has an enduring interest in suicide prevention, motivated by concerns for a close family member attempter and the suicide death of a cousin.
Lygia Williams, MA, in her current position with the Tennessee Department of Mental Health, serves as Principal Investigator for the Tennessee Lives Counts/Juvenile Justice (TLC/JJ) project. Ms. Williams provides contract oversight and technical assistance for youth and adult suicide prevention efforts and various school based prevention/intervention programs statewide. She facilitates the TLC Task Force and Youth Transition Task Force. In addition, Ms. Williams is a certified trainer in ASIST and QPR gatekeeper training for suicide prevention. She is a post member of the International Critical Incident Stress Management and has advanced training in trauma response. Ms. Williams has over 30 years of mental health experience in both the public and private sectors. She has a Masters in Clinical Psychology and experience in adult and children’s mental health services.