Marcus Henderson

The recipient of the 2024-2025 NEF Madeline A. Naegle Scholarship for Mental Health Nursing is Marcus D. Henderson, MSN, RN, a PhD Candidate at the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing. His doctoral dissertation focuses on the critical role of parents in adolescent suicide prevention, specifically the psychosocial factors associated with parental self-efficacy in preventing suicidal behaviors.  In addition to support from NEF, Marcus’s doctoral training is supported by a Ruth L. Kirschstein NRSA Predoctoral Fellowship from the National Institute of Mental Health. He was also a Doctoral Fellow in the SAMHSA Minority Fellowship Program at the American Nurses Association from 2021-2024. Marcus received a BSN and MSN in Health Leadership from the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, and a certificate in Health Care Innovation from the Perelman School of Medicine.

His experience as a young caregiver for his great-grandmother with Alzheimer's and great aunt with Down Syndrome, inspired Marcus' nursing career. Witnessing the expert care provided by home care, hospice, and acute care nurses motivated him to pursue nursing. Initially aiming to become a geriatric nurse, Marcus's passion shifted towards community health and psychiatric nursing during nursing school. His work as a research assistant at Penn Nursing's Center for Health Equity Research and a clinical placement with a school nurse in Kensington exposed him to the social and structural determinants of health, driving his passion to help individuals and families thrive in their communities.

His research interest is rooted in his professional experience as an inpatient child and adolescent psychiatric nurse, where he observed high rates of adolescents receiving care for acute suicidal behavior and frequent inpatient readmissions. Factors such as lack of social support, poor care coordination, and limited access to outpatient and supportive services contribute to the high prevalence of adolescent mental health problems. Structural deficiencies in the mental health system prevent quality care and support for adolescents and families managing suicidal crises. This is further compounded by structural racism, whereby minoritized adolescents and families receive disparate care, resulting in worse outcomes. Working with parents during their child's discharge, Marcus came to appreciate the heavy burden placed on parents to manage their child’s mental health needs with limited support and resources from the healthcare system. This led him to wonder how we can better understand and support parents during this critical time and contribute to the science of adolescent suicide prevention.

Johns Hopkins School of Nursing PhD program contained the answers to Marcus' research question, he was mentored by Dr. Deborah Gross, and pursued interdisciplinary training in the Schools of Nursing, Medicine, and Public Health. This research area is crucial and evolving, especially in the context of COVID-19, where many gaps in scientific understanding remain. With the support of NEF and a PhD in Nursing from Johns Hopkins, Marcus aims to produce high-quality evidence necessary to improve clinical practice and impact policy, creating a more just, equitable, and high-quality mental health system for adolescents and families.