Research Grants

Helpsam.org will be sponsoring annual research grants.  We are currently awarding a $1,000 research grant to selected graduate students and experienced researchers in psychology to advance research which will help improve the lives of adult survivors of trauma, abuse (physical, sexual, emotional, psychological) and/or neglect.

Graduate students must be currently enrolled full-time in a Department of Psychology at the graduate level.

Guidelines for Applicants

1. A complete application consists of the application coversheet, the project description, and the budget worksheet. A blank application coversheet and a blank budget worksheet are available from the links below.

 2. The project description must be prepared according to APA style (i.e., in accordance with the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association). The project description must be formatted in a standard, 12-point font, double-spaced, with 1-inch margins and may not exceed 10 pages plus references. Applications must also be designed to permit an anonymous review—information identifying the applicant should not appear anywhere in the application other than on the cover sheet.

 3. The project description should generally include: (a) the background and rationale for the project; (b) a brief statement of the relevance of the project to the adult survivors of trauma, abuse and/or neglect. (c) the methodology, including descriptions of the participants, instruments, procedures, and data analysis; (d) anticipated or achieved findings; and (e) discussion of the (anticipated) findings and the potential implications of those findings for the field. The methodology section should be explicit regarding the choice of quantitative versus qualitative methods and describe why those methods can better answer the specific research question(s) than would the other methods. The participant section should address the ethnic and cultural diversity of the (anticipated) sample, where appropriate, and the procedures section should describe how ethnic, cultural, and other diversity issues are handled in the project, where relevant.

 4. The project budget must describe anticipated costs for the overall project, other sources of funding for the project (both those already awarded and those applied for), and a statement as to how this grant will be spent.

5. Applications should be submitted electronically or via physical mail. A single word-processor file that includes all three portions of the application (application coversheet, project description, and budget worksheet) should be emailed to the electronic address below. The blank application coversheet and blank budget worksheet below are formatted to permit being cut-and-pasted into the word processor file. For those preferring physical mail, send one copy of the application packet to the address below.

 6. Deadline: Electronic applications must be transmitted on or before May 31. Physical applications must be postmarked on or before May 31. Receipt of applications will be confirmed by email.

 7. Applications that fail to meet the above guidelines will not be reviewed.

 8. Each proposal shall be evaluated by two or more reviewers using the following criteria: (a) relevance to the objectives of helpsam.org, (b) completeness, logic, and relevance of the literature review to the development of the research question(s), (c) clarity of the description of the research question(s), (d) appropriateness of the methodology to answering the research question(s) including, for example and where appropriate, sampling methods, sample size, established validity of instruments, and statistical/analytical techniques, (e) overall originality and novelty of the theory, research question(s), and methodology, (f) quality and completeness of the interpretation of the (potential) results, and (g) feasibility of the project to produce meaningful results.

 9. The award recipients will be notified by helpsam.org. The names of the award recipients will also be announced on the helpsam.org web page. Award recipients must submit a 1500-word abstract of the project for publication on the web site.. Award recipients must acknowledge the helpsam.org funding in all publications resulting from the project. Award recipients are also encouraged to submit proposals to present the project’s findings at the Annual APA Convention.

 
Application Documents
Click on the following links for the documents. They will appear in a separate window and can be printed or cut-and-pasted into a word processor file, as necessary.

 
Application coversheet
Budget worksheet

Applications can be sent to:

Helpsam.org
Research Grants
4 Highfield Lane
Rutherford, NJ  07070

Electronic submissions to:
Kathy@helpsam.org