Robin Hanks, Ph.D., ABPP-ABCN, professor of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation for the Wayne State University School of Medicine and chief of Rehabilitation Psychology and Neuropsychology at the Detroit Medical Center Rehabilitation Institute of Michigan, is one of only five international researchers invited to be a keynote speaker at the fifth International Conference on Neurology & Epidemiology.

Dr. Hanks will present her research on "Peer Mentoring as a Method for Improving Community Integration" during the conference, taking place Nov. 18-20 at Griffith University in Australia. Her study examined the role of a peer-mentoring program for persons with traumatic brain injury and their significant others with regard to community integration.

She examined a variety of psychosocial measures, including perceived community integration, at the end of the peer-mentoring program to determine the impact of the mentoring in both the injured person and their significant others and caregivers. Dr. Hanks's presentation will focus on the outcome of this project and how this program is now being extended to those with spinal cord injury at DMC Rehabilitation Institute of Michigan.

Mentoring can be an effective way to benefit mood and healthy coping after a traumatic brain injury, and it can help prevent behaviors such as substance abuse and frequent violent and uncontrollable social behavior.