Two educators from the Brown School are part of the initial group to finish a distinctive training initiative aimed at assisting social work and nursing instructors in incorporating psychedelic-assisted therapy topics into their academic programs.

Tonya Edmond, a faculty member, alongside Ryan Lindsay, a professor of practice and head of the mental health concentration, were part of 63 individuals chosen from 30 institutions spanning 22 states for the first 2025 Faculty Fellow cohort of the University Psychedelic Education Program (U-PEP) Faculty Education Program. The group undertook training at the Usona Institute in Madison, Wisconsin, a nonprofit pioneer in psychedelic-assisted therapy research.

They collaborate with Leopoldo J. Cabassa, a professor, in promoting psychedelic education and research at the Brown School. Cabassa completed the pilot training of U-PEP in 2023 and currently acts as a faculty mentor for the initiative, also participating in the U-PEP Learning Collaborative.

All three educators are members of the Psychedelic-Assisted Therapies Learning Community (PAT-LC), an interdisciplinary collective at the Brown School co-chaired by Cabassa. This fall, Edmond will introduce a new course for Master of Social Work students titled, “Foundations of Psychedelic Healing in Clinical Social Work.”

Discover more on the Brown School website.

The article titled Brown School faculty join national effort to advance psychedelic therapy education was originally published on The Source.