(COLUMBUS, Ohio) – Nationwide Children’s Hospital announces Ariana Hoet, PhD, as the new executive clinical director of The On Our Sleeves Movement For Children’s Mental Health and Whitney J. Raglin Bignall, PhD, as the new associate clinical director of On Our Sleeves.
Dr. Hoet is the driving force behind the On Our Sleeves mission of providing free educational resources that break stigmas, increase mental health literacy, and support children’s mental health. Since joining the On Our Sleeves team, Dr. Hoet has become a vital public voice for youth mental health, serving as a go-to national expert for outlets including USA Today, CNN, Good Morning America, and Newsweek. In addition, she has also made an impact on countless young lives in her clinical practice.
“I am very excited to be taking on this new leadership role with On Our Sleeves,” Dr. Hoet said. “I am also thrilled to be adding Dr. Raglin Bignall to our team, so we can both build upon our mission to provide free expert-created resources to all U.S. communities – so everyone can understand and promote mental health for children.”
Dr. Whitney Raglin Bignall has a passion for making mental health services equitable for all children and families. That passion has played out in her career through her academic and clinical work with a focus on narrowing the mental health disparities in children.
“I’m very grateful for the opportunity to join the On Our Sleeves team,” Dr. Raglin Bignall said. “On Our Sleeves does amazing work sharing evidence-based information and materials that are easy for anyone to understand. With the current mental health crisis in our country, we need On Our Sleeves to help break the stigma and make it easy for families to start learning how they can prevent and address mental health concerns.”
Before joining the On Our Sleeves team, Dr. Raglin Bignall played an integral role in working with families at a Nationwide Children’s Primary Care Center, which served a primarily low-income and racially diverse community. She also implemented a program to help enhance parenting skills for raising young children and built partnerships with community organizations, primary care offices and neighborhood schools.
Dr. Hoet received her bachelor’s degree in psychology from The Ohio State University and a doctorate in clinical psychology from the University of North Carolina-Greensboro. Dr. Hoet was recognized as a Distinguished Hispanic Ohioan by the Ohio Commission on Hispanic/Latino Affairs, an “EXTRAordinary” Volunteer by the Down Syndrome Association for her work within the Spanish-speaking community, and she was recently named to the 40 Under 40 Class of 2023 by Columbus Business First.
Dr. Raglin Bignall received her bachelor’s degree in psychology from The Ohio State University, and a PhD in clinical psychology at the University of Cincinnati. She was named to the Who’s Who in Black Columbus list in 2019 and is a 40 under 40 Leader in Minority Health award winner of the National Minority Quality Forum and the Congressional Black Caucus.
About The On Our Sleeves® Movement For Children’s Mental Health
Children don’t wear their thoughts on their sleeves. With 1 in 5 children living with a significant mental health concern and half of all lifetime mental health concerns starting by age 14, we need to give them a voice. The On Our Sleeves Movement For Children’s Mental Health, created by Nationwide Children’s Hospital, one of the United States’ largest network of pediatric behavioral health treatment providers and researchers, is on a mission to give expert-created resources to all U.S. communities so everyone can understand and promote mental health for children. Our vision is to build a world where mental health is a part of the upbringing of every single child. Nearly 1,000 mental health professionals and researchers at Nationwide Children’s, in partnership with other trusted experts, provide their real-world knowledge and expertise to power On Our Sleeves.
Since the inception of On Our Sleeves in 2018, more than 6 million people in every state across the United States has interacted with the movement’s free pediatric mental health education resources at OnOurSleeves.org.