The Children's Mental Health Network is proud to be a co-sponsor for the 25th Annual Children's Mental Health Research and Policy Conference hosted by the Department of Child and Family Studies at the University of South Florida.

Monday, March 5, 2012 ~ 8:30 am - 10:15 am

Plenary Session
National Health Care Reform: Where are we? What's Next?

John O'Brien, Senior Advisor to the Administrator on Health Care Reform, SAMHSA, Rockville, MD; Daniel Dawes, Federal Affairs and Grassroots Manager, Premier, Inc., Washington, DC; Jim Wotring, Director of the National Training and Technical Assistance Center for Children’s Mental Health, Assistant Professor, Georgetown University, Washington, DC

John O'Brien will lead off with a presentation that describes the efforts currently underway in the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Find out what role mental health policy makers, researchers and other leaders in the field can play in implementing the ACA and what future activities are planned for 2012 and beyond.

Then, Daniel Dawes will provide an overview of what it took to accomplish a health equity agenda in health reform, discuss some of the critical provisions of the health reform law that address the impact and reduction of health disparities among vulnerable populations, and discuss the current challenges implementing many of these provisions. 

Finally, Jim Wotring will provide an overview of how states will increase access to care, improve quality, while at the same time controlling costs. This will lead to an increased demand for data as states will have to monitor quality as well as performance  and  evaluate various aspects of health reform.  This presentation will describe some of these new opportunities and new responsibilities states will be facing with health reform. 

About the presenters 

John O'Brien: John O'Brien is the Senior Advisor to the Administrator on Health Care Reform at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). John O’Brien was the Director of several national projects funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to develop strategies for coordinating funding for human services from federal, state and local dollars.

Prior to his work at SAMHSA, Mr. O’Brien worked with the Technical Assistance Collaborative for fifteen years as a Senior Consultant. He has provided consultation to over 30 states and local human services authorities. He has worked with Medicaid, state mental health and substance abuse authorities. He has worked with states to develop federal Medicaid Waivers, Medicaid state plan amendments, and federal grant applications (e.g., children’s system of care).

Mr. O’Brien has also been a manager at KPMG Peat Marwick and worked for the Eunice Kennedy Shriver Center, the Massachusetts Developmental Disability Council, the Illinois Governor’s Office, and the Illinois Legislative Commission on Mental Health, Mental Retardation and Substance Abuse. He was a program staff at Thresholds, Inc. in Chicago.

Daniel Dawes: Daniel is a healthcare attorney and manager of federal affairs and grassroots network at Premier healthcare alliance in Washington, D.C. During health reform negotiations, he founded and chaired the National Working Group on Health Disparities and Health Reform – a group comprising over 250 national organizations and coalitions - to ensure that health reform legislation included health equity provisions to reduce disparities in health status and health care among vulnerable populations. He is one of thirteen experts serving on the newly established Health Equity Leadership Commission to provide guidance to Members of Congress, the Obama Administration, and officials at the Department of Health and Human Services on implementing health reform. Before joining Premier, Daniel was a Senior Legislative and Federal Affairs Officer at the American Psychological Association (APA). Prior to working for the APA, Daniel worked on the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee under the leadership of Senator Edward M. Kennedy where he advised the Senator and members of the committee on an array of issues related to employment, health care, public health, and disability law and policy. Prior to his work with the Senate HELP Committee, Daniel worked for the Congressional Black Caucus Health Braintrust (CBC HB) under the leadership of Congresswoman Donna M. Christensen where he worked on legislative efforts related to health disparities, disability, and emergency preparedness/bioterrorism.

Daniel is highly respected for his capacity to achieve sound policy changes in a bi-partisan manner. He is the recipient of several national awards and serves on several boards, commissions, and councils. He is also the recipient of the prestigious Louis Stokes Health Policy Fellowship. Daniel holds a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Nebraska - College of Law and a Bachelor of Science in business administration and psychology from Nova Southeastern University.

Jim Wotring: Jim Wotring is Director of the National Technical Assistance Center for Children’s Mental Health at Georgetown University Center for Child and Human Development. In this role he consults with states and communities on a variety of topics and supports a staff of 15 to 20 full- and part-time faculty and staff who provide training and technical assistance throughout the country. Prior to this position he served as the Director of Programs for Children with a Serious Emotional Disturbance with the Michigan Department of Community Health (MDCH). He has consulted both nationally and internationally on such topics as wraparound, financing systems of care and more recently on outcome management and change management related to dissemination of evidence based practices. Before joining the MDCH in December 1994 he was the Child and Adolescent Service System (CASSP) Program Director for Michigan. He has worked with the child welfare and juvenile justice systems, the mental health system, and has worked for community mental health centers in both urban and rural areas.

 

Monday, March 5, 2012 ~ 1:00 pm - 2:30 pm

International Lecture Plenary Session

Services to Advance Children's Well Being: Obstacles and Opportunities ~ Dr. Sharon Lynn Kagan

Sponsored by

Dr. Kagan’s presentation will draw from international examples of her work in examining the nature of contemporary early childhood services, discussing how such services historically have been characterized by a lack of service linkages and integration.  She will highlight examples of efforts to overcome this chasm, citing linkage efforts with schools, families, and health and mental health services.  Presenting data, Kagan will illustrate how the delivery of services to meet children’s comprehensive well-being has been compromised by not only a lack of public commitment, but by the lack of a cogent, integrated approach to research, planning, and policy.  The presentation will end with concrete recommendations for communities, states and the federal government regarding how best to advantage America’s young children. 

Sharon Lynn Kagan is the Virginia and Leonard Marx Professor of Early Childhood and Family Policy and Co-Director of the National Center for Children and Families at Teachers College, Columbia University, and Professor Adjunct at Yale University's Child Study Center.

Dr. Kagan, recognized nationally and internationally for her work related to the care and education of young children and their families, is a frequent consultant to the White House, Congress, the National Governors’ Association, the U.S. Departments of Education and Health and Human Services, numerous states, foundations, corporations, and professional associations, and serves on over 40 national boards or panels. She has been the President of the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), the Co-Chair of the National Education Goals Panel on Goal One, Chair of the Family Support America’s Board of Directors, a member of President Clinton’s education transition team, and National Commissions on Head Start and Chapter 1. She is dedicated to early childhood education, having been a Head Start Teacher and Director, as well as an administrator in the public schools and Director of the New York City Mayor’s Office of Early Childhood Education.

In addition to these contributions, Dr. Kagan is globally recognized for her unique scholarship. In over 225 publications including 13 volumes, Kagan’s analytic work has helped the field define school readiness, the early childhood system, dimensions of collaboration, and leadership in early care and education. With scores of grants from America’s leading foundations and the federal government, she has researched early childhood pedagogy, strategies for service integration, and the evaluation of social programs. She is currently working around the globe with UNICEF to establish early learning standards in Armenia, Brazil, Cambodia, China, Ghana, Jordan, Mongolia, Paraguay, Turkmenistan, and Viet Nam. Perhaps most importantly, however, Dr. Kagan may be best known as the only woman in the history of American Education to be recognized for these contributions with its most prestigious awards: the 2004 Distinguished Service Award from the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), the 2005 James Bryant Conant Award for Lifetime Service to Education from the Education Commission of the States (ECS), and the Harold W. McGraw, Jr. Prize in Education.

Tuesday, March 6, 2012 ~ 8:30 am - 10:15 am

Plenary Session
Data Decision Support Processes:  Impact of Data on Improving Practice and Outcomes across System Partners

Kay Hodges, PhD, Institute for the Study of Children, Families, and Communities, Eastern Michigan University, Ypsilanti, MI; Daniel Chaney, MSW, Wayne County Department of Children and Family Services, Detroit, MI; R. Sam Larson, PhD Kaiser Permanente Colorado, Denver, CO; Valerie Holmes, Brevard C.A.R.E.S, Rockledge, FL

Delivery of behavioral health care in our communities is undergoing an uncertain transformation. To be an adaptive and viable organization in the future, leaders must strive to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of their services, based on informative data.  Our current task is to find ways to embed and sustain procedures that result in using data to inform decisions about policies, programs, practices, and training needs.  Technology permits timely examination of aggregated data on client-level outcomes for continuous quality improvement (CQI). This CQI process can be implemented routinely at any level of the organization or community (front line staff, supervisors, agency administrators, state administrators, and various stakeholders, including consumers and system partners).  When this process is done iteratively, it is self-corrective, eventually leading to incremental improvement in outcomes and efficiency of services.

In this plenary, leaders in juvenile justice, health care, and child welfare will demonstrate how their organizations use a data decision support system to work toward improving practice and outcomes for their clients.

• Mr. Daniel Chaney, Director of Juvenile Services Division in Detroit, will describe how the Division continuously used data to design, implement, and sustain system reform over a 10 year period, resulting in widely-recognized success for procedural and programmatic changes that improved outcomes for youth while keeping the community safe.
• Dr. Sam Larson, Director of Knowledge Management and Implementation Support at Kaiser Permanente, will illustrate how a health care organization intensively utilizes a data decision support system. This is an opportunity to see a highly developed model that focuses on treatment and prevention.
• Valerie Holmes, Executive Director of Brevard C.A.R.E.S, leads the area’s signature child abuse prevention  program that has successfully diverted children from the child welfare system into innovative community based alternatives in a cost effective manner, using data to guide change and to evaluate the outcomes of innovative programs.
• Dr. Kay Hodges, of the Institute for the Study of Children, Families, and Communities, will introduce and moderate the panel. Dr. Hodges will discuss current trends in improving an organization or community’s capacity to use data to improve outcomes for children and adolescents.

About the presenters 

Kay Hodges: Dr. Kay Hodges is founder and research director at Functional Assessment Systems and is currently Professor of Psychology at Eastern Michigan University (EMU) and Director of the Level of Functioning Project at the Applied Research Unit at the Institute for the Study of Children, Family, and Communities at EMU. Before joining EMU in 1989, she was an Associate Professor in the Division of Medical Psychology at Duke University Medical Center. Previously at the University of Missouri Medical School, she directed the Mid-Missouri Psychology Internship Consortium and directed the child and adolescent outpatient unit at the Community Mental Health Center She received her doctorate in clinical psychology from the University of Maryland and completed her internship training at the Children's Hospital in Washington D.C. She received post-doctoral clinical training at Washington University School of Medicine and the Menninger Foundation. Dr. Hodges is a diplomat in clinical psychology and a fellow of the American Psychological Association. Along with an active research program, Dr. Hodges is active in consultation and training.

 

Tuesday, March 6th ~ 2:00 pm - 3:30 pm
Plenary Session: Policy and Funding Issues Impacting Supports for Young People during the Transition to Adulthood

Maryann Davis, PhD, Director, Learning and Working During the Transition to Adulthood Rehabilitation Research and Training Center (Transitions RTC), Center for Mental Health Services Research, University of Massachusetts Medical School; Janet Walker, PhD, Co-Director, Research and Training Center on Family Support and Children's Mental Health, Portland, OR; Joan Mikula, Assistant Commissioner, Child and Adolescent Services at Massachusetts Department of Mental Health, Boston, MA; Gwen White, MSW, Georgetown University, National Technical Assistance Center for Children’s Mental Health, Washington, DC

Young people with serious mental health conditions transitioning into adulthood face unique challenges and complexities that come with interacting with both child and adult service systems.  Furthermore, ever-changing policies and funding issues at the national and state level impact these systems and effect this transition period in unique ways.  This plenary will provide an overview of the policy and funding issues that have implication for young people with mental health conditions as they move into mature adulthood. 

Maryann Davis, PhD, will provide an overview of these system level issues, including implications of the Affordable Care Act. 

Janet Walker, PhD, will describe policy and funding issues that grantees have faced when implementing Healthy Transitions Initiative grants from the Federal Center for Mental Health Services.  An evaluator of one of the Health Transitions Initiative sites will provide a summary and examples of his/her experiences navigating these policies and funding sources to support the mission of system improvement. 

Joan Mikula, Assistant Commissioner, Child/Adolescent Services in the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health, will describe how federal and state policy issues have impacted services in the state and more specifically, the System of Care Expansion Planning Grant that aims to develop a comprehensive strategic plan for improving and expanding services provided by systems of care for young adults ages 16-25 with serious emotional disturbances and their families.  Federal and state policies are always changing, but this plenary will provide a solid overview of the current situation as it pertains to youth transitioning into adulthood and their families.

Gwen White, MSW, HTI TA Project Director, Georgetown University, National Technical Assistance Center for Children’s Mental Health, Washington, DC. will provide a summary of issues related to policies and funding at the local / direct practice level.  Lessons learned from the Partnerships for Youth Transition and the Healthy Transitions Initiative grant programs will be discussed.

About the presenters 

Maryann Davis: Dr. Maryann Davis is an internationally recognized expert on services for transition age youth and young adults with serious mental health conditions. Her focus is on the development of adult role functioning during the transition from adolescence to mature adulthood. She has examined conflicts between the developmental needs of this transitioning population and policies and practices at the federal, state, and local levels of health, human service and education agencies. She has studied service system supports and barriers to healthy development, the policies that shape those service patterns, and has worked with congress to develop legislation to better address the needs of this population. Dr. Davis’ work also emphasizes the development of evidence-based interventions that improve this population’s transition into adulthood, including facilitation of mental health and related treatment, and interventions that reduce criminal behavior and support the successful completion of education and training, and movement into mature work lives. Dr. Davis is a Research Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at UMass Medical School and the Director of the Learning and Working during Transition to Adulthood Rehabilitation Research and Training Center (Transitions RTC).

Janet Walker: Janet Walker, Ph.D., is Research Associate Professor in the School of Social Work and the Regional Research Institute at Portland State University. She is the Co-Director of the Research and Training Center on Pathways to Positive Futures and was formerly the Director of Research at the Research and Training Center on Family Support and Children's Mental Health. Her research focuses on exploring how individuals and organizations acquire capacity to implement and sustain high quality practice in human service settings, describing key implementation factors that affect the ability of organizations and individuals to provide high quality services and treatment, and developing and evaluating interventions to increase the extent to which youth with emotional or mental health difficulties are meaningfully involved in care and treatment planning.

Joan Mikula: Joan Mikula has been Assistant Commissioner for Child and Adolescent Services at the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health since 1985. She joined the Department with experience in education, child welfare and juvenile justice as well as human services administration in the private sector. Ms Mikula has been a strong proponent of systems of care development, of strengths based interventions in the context of family practice, and of youth and family voice. These have guided the Department’s policy and planning agenda relating to children and their families. Her interagency and community orientation along with her commitment to partnerships with families and youth have resulted in many cross cutting initiatives in the Commonwealth, most specifically focused on Parents with Mental Illness, Transition Age Youth and Young Adults, Adopted Youth, the utilization of Family Partners and Peer Leaders in SOC, and utilization of the Building Bridges model into a joint procurement of residential services in conjunction with Child Welfare. She is currently the Principal Investigator on a Systems of Care SAMHSA planning grant focused on Transition Age Youth and Young Adults in Massachusetts SOC projects.

Gwen White: Ms. White joined the faculty at Georgetown University, National Technical Assistance Center for Children’s Mental Health (NTAC) in 2009 as the Project Director of Technical Assistance for the Federal Healthy Transition Initiative (HTI). The Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) awarded 7 states HTI grants in order to improve the transition to adulthood for youth and young adults who are experiencing mental health issues.  As the HTI TA Project Director, she provides and coordinates technical assistance from a diverse group of content specialists and facilitators to the 7 grantees states.  In this role, she also provides technical assistance to other states on system reform strategies that involve improved outcomes for youth and young adults of transitional age.  She is active in national transformation activities, presenting and writing in the field.  Ms. White is a content expert around the transition to independence and successful adaptation of adult roles and responsibilities for youth and young adults with serious mental health conditions and their families.

Ms. White has a Master’s degree in Social Work and has worked developing innovative approaches to mental health service delivery for over thirty-five years for children and families in Pennsylvania.  The last eleven years, she served in a leadership role as the Project Director for three Systems of Care Initiatives, funded by SAMHSA, in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania.  In her career, she has played many roles in supporting families, youth and young adults in multiple settings and systems including:  medical, education, early intervention, child welfare, and behavioral health.

 
Wednesday, March 7, 2012 ~ 9:00 am - 10:30 am
 Plenary Session
Leading Change: Effective Approaches to Serving Children with Mental Health Challenges and Their Families
 
Larke Huang, PhD, Director, Office of Behavioral Health Equity, SAMHSA, Rockville, MD; Gary M. Blau, PhD, Branch Chief, Child, Adolescent and Family Branch, SAMHSA, Rockville, MD

This plenary session will focus on current issues and trends in addressing the behavioral health needs of children, youth and families.  Included in the discussion will be a focus on SAMHSA strategic initiatives and interagency activities, funding activities that support services and evidence-based approaches, and specific initiatives that are designed to shape the field of child and youth behavioral health.

About the presenters

Larke Nahme Huang, PhD, a licensed clinical-community psychologist, is a Senior Advisor in the Administrator’s Office of Policy Planning and Innovation at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.  In this position she provides leadership on national policy for mental health and substance use issues for children, adolescents and families and leads the Administrator’s strategic initiative on Trauma and Justice.  She is also the Director of SAMHSA’s Office of Behavioral Health Equity which was legislated by the 2010 health reform legislation. In 2009, she did a six months leadership exchange at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) where she was the Senior Advisor on Mental Health.

For the past 25 years, Dr. Huang has worked at the interface of practice, research and policy. She has assumed multiple leadership roles dedicated to improving the lives of children, families and communities.  She has been a community mental health practitioner, a faculty member at the University of California, Berkeley and Georgetown University, and a research director at the American Institutes for Research.  She has worked with states and communities to build systems of care for children with serious emotional and behavioral disorders. She has developed programs for underserved, culturally and linguistically diverse populations, evaluated community-based programs, and authored books and articles.  In 2003, Huang served as an appointed Commissioner on the President’s New Freedom Commission on Mental Health. 

Recent publications include: Children of Color:  Psychological Interventions with Culturally Diverse Youth; Transforming Mental Health Care for Children and Their Families; The Influence of Race and Ethnicity on Psychiatric Diagnoses and Clinical Characteristics of Children and Adolescents in Children’s Service; and Co-Occurring Disorders of Adolescents in Primary Care: Closing the Gaps

Gary M. Blau, PhD is a Clinical Psychologist and is currently the Chief of the Child, Adolescent and Family Branch of the Center for Mental Health Services.  In this role he provides national leadership for children’s mental health and for creating “systems of care” across the country.  Prior to this, Dr. Blau was the Bureau Chief of Quality Management and Director of Mental Health at the Connecticut Department of Children and Families (DCF), and the Director of Clinical Services at the Child and Family Agency of Southeastern, Connecticut.  He also holds a clinical faculty appointment at the Yale Child Study Center. 

Dr. Blau was formerly a member of the National Association of State Mental Health Program Director’s Division of Children, Youth and Families, and from July 1, 1998 through June 30, 2000 he was the Division’s Chairperson.  Dr. Blau has received several awards including the prestigious Pro Humanitate Literary Award for literary works which best exemplify the intellectual integrity and moral courage required to transcend political and social barriers to promote best practice in the field of child welfare, the Governor’s Service Award, the Phoebe Bennet Award for outstanding contribution to children’s mental health in Connecticut, and the Making a Difference Award presented by Connecticut’s Federation of Families for Children’s Mental Health.  In 2009, Dr. Blau was the recipient of the HHS Secretary’s Award for Meritorious Service for his national leadership in children’s mental health and in 2011 he received the “Rock Star” award for “being a true champion for the youth movement and advocate for youth voice” from Youth MOVE, National. 

Dr. Blau has numerous journal publications and has been the editor of many books, including the recently published “Leadership Equation:  Strategies for Individuals who are Champions for Children, Youth and Families,” the “Handbook of Childhood Behavioral Issues:  Evidence Based Approaches to Prevention and Treatment,” “Family Influences on Childhood Behavior and Development,” and “The System of Care Handbook:  Transforming Mental Health Services for Children, Youth and Families.”  He received his Ph.D. from Auburn University (Auburn, Alabama) in 1988.