Équipe Participants

Dr. Joy Agner

Assistant Professor, USC Chan School of Occupational Science & Occupational Therapy (California)
Email Joy at agner@usc.edu | 503.200.9221

  • My research focuses on improving community-based services for people with serious mental illness (PWSMI), which is rooted in my experiences as a family member, caregiver, advocate, health care provider, and community-engaged researcher. In these roles, I have repeatedly witnessed the failing of our mental health "system." PWSMI are stigmatized, abandoned, offered care in dehumanizing, institutional environments, and then blamed for their poor choices. Despite the urgent need to fix our broken systems, mental health research primarily focuses on individual-level factors. This reiterates the false narrative that lack of recovery is a personal failing. Thus, my goal is to carry out empowering, community-grounded research to improve mental health systems and services.

Travis Atkinson

Director of Clinical & Crisis Services, TBD Solutions (Michigan)
Email Travis at travisa@tbdsolutions.com | 616.914.0985

Anna Bailey

Senior Policy Analyst, Center on Budget/Policy Priorities (Maryland)
Email Anna at abailey@cbpp.org | 202.325.8841

Melissa Beck

Executive Director, The Sosozei Foundation (New Jersey)
Email Melissa at melissa.beck@otsuka-us.com | 646.265.8878

  • I grew up inside of the Henry Street Settlement where my late father served as Executive Director and that experience, along with my professional journey have focused on the intersection of systems, cultural norms, climate and the arts as forces to build individual and community-wide resilience and well-being. I practiced law in the criminal legal system as both a prosecutor and criminal defense attorney, worked on reforming the criminal legal system in the US, and was part of the team to launch The Nathaniel Project – the nation's first alternative to incarceration for people with mental illness. I have written articles about the role of philanthropy in advancing access to mental healthcare and hosted a podcast focused on the gaps in services that can drive the criminalization of mental illness. I currently serve on the Board of the National Associate of State Mental Health Program Directors Research Institute (aka, NRI).

Dr. Carissa Cabán Alemán

Community Psychiatrist/Clinical Associate Professor, Florida International University (Puerto Rico)
Email Carissa at ccabanal@fiu.edu | 787.375.8415

  • I began with community psychiatry electives and moonlighting in a correctional facility as a resident in Philadelphia. I completed the Columbia Public Psychiatry Fellowship, learning systems-based, whole person-centered, trauma-informed care while working in a CMHC and a public housing facility for transitional-aged youth and persons with chronic psychiatric symptoms in Brooklyn. After becoming an Assistant Professor in FL, I was recommended for a position as medical director of Behavioral Health for an FQHC dedicated to persons experiencing homelessness in Miami. I supervised several programs including Street Outreach, Collaborative Care, Assertive-Community Treatment (ACT), transitional housing care, integrated case management, etc. I teach and publish about holistic care for persons experiencing systemic oppression, cultural humility, climate mental health, moral injury, etc. I'm a consultant for the P.R. Science Trust in research about climate injustice and the social determinants of mental health. I assist several grassroots efforts for oppressed communities to obtain more power and societal influence over public policy decisions that affect their health and rights.

Cherene Caraco

CEO, Promise Resource Network (North Carolina)
Email Cherene at ccaraco@promiseresourcenetwork.org | 704.776.6708

  • When I was 13, I received my first of 8 mental health diagnosis along with the message that I was sick, would like be in and out of hospitals, and wouldn’t be able to do things like go to college. They were wrong. These messages nearly debilitated me as I became compliant, sicker, and attempted suicide at the age of 19 when a therapist petitioned to involuntarily hospitalize me. My recovery process had to come outside of services and as I walked away from an illness identity, I found my voice, healing, and purpose to disrupt pathology based mental health systems. I have been doing that for 32 years. In 2005, I started an independent non-profit, led and staffed by survivors of psychiatric systems, suicide, carceral systems (hospital, jail, prison), houselessness, overdose, and the interconnected oppression related to poverty, race, and disability. Now, we operate 21 programs that are designed by and with communities most impacted that serve as alternative, no barrier options centered in recovery, healing, self help, mutual aid, voice, and elevating the wisdom of lived experience. We believe strongly in the power of employment and purpose in recovery. The majority of our over 100 employees were given a chronic illness prophecy, pushed into disability or omitted from the workforce, and had to transcend from a life of subsidies and poverty. Among our programs include peer run respites as alternatives to emergency department and in patient treatment, statewide 24/7 peer warm line, homeless to homeowner initiatives (staffed by people that have been unhoused), community re-entry from “institutes of mental disease”/jail/prison, jail and prison diversion (staffed by people with felony backgrounds), recovery cafe, and open access recovery hubs. In 2018, we started a statewide movement called PeerVoice to organize, strategize, and mobilize people impacted around policy change. That group launched a forensic peer support workforce and training, and 3 bills with bi-partisan support: (1) transparency in data collection and reporting on the use of involuntary commitments, (2) funding peer-run alternatives to traditional treatment, and (3) piloting non-police crisis response.

John Chambliss

Policy Advisor, US Senate Mental Health Caucus; Office of Sen Alex Padilla (Washington, DC)
Email John at johnchambliss34@gmail.com | 805.680.4946

  • I began my career supporting State Medicaid Programs in their creation of 1115 Demonstration Waivers primarily concerning mental health and maternal health coverage postpartum. I went on to support Congressman Moulton's work in the implementation of 9-8-8. I now serve as Senator Padilla's Health Policy Advisor and the lead of the Senate Mental Health Caucus.

Karina Forrest-Perkins

President & CEO, Vail Communities (Minnesota)
Email Karina at kforrestperkins@vailplace.org | 651.600.7442

  • My career started in the legal field. I experienced this field as a socially acceptable place for people to engage in a highly distressed manner...similar to an emergency room or psychiatric hospital. Thirty-five years later, this still holds true. Most social norms reject or eject people when their adaptations to trauma or symptoms from mental illness make everyone else uncomfortable. Our US norms all too often relegate people to ERs, legal environments, or incarceration when we no longer know what to do in response to their illnesses or needs. There must be a better solution. For the next 25 years, I pursued a pathway in human services as a clinician, a consultant, and an administrator. I am a citizen of the Cherokee Nation and have spent decades co-authoring trainings and curricula that embed ancient healing practices into current system responses. In 2013 my consultancy made a pivot in helping human serving organizations create thriving environments for staff, so they had the values driven capacity to serve others well. This continues to be a priority for me. In 2017 I received a research leadership fellowship to explore how our current system needed to adapt in order to respond early and adequately to those living with mental illness. I am very involved in public policy, thought leadership, and strategic systems design that helps us dismantle system behavior that hurts others. I am currently leading Vail Communities, the only organization in Minnesota who operates accredited Clubhouse programs. Since my arrival in early 2022, we have funded and opened a new site in Saint Paul and are working on legislation that will influence statewide expansion.

Dr. Nev Jones

Professor, School of Social Work, University of Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania)
Email Nev at nevjones@pitt.edu | 813.415.5532

  • I grew up immersed in the public mental health system via my mother, who has long-term significant psychiatric disabilities (schizophrenia), then in young adult was diagnosed with schizophrenia myself and have worked in this space ever since as an advocate, peer supporter, program developer, researcher and clinical instructor. My direct and family experiences span the legal system, income- and disability-based welfare, homelessness and subsidized housing, in addition to outpatient and inpatient services, both voluntary and involuntary. Over the course of my career to date, I have worked to transform these systems, drawing on family and personal experience, but also a now 15-year track record of involvement and leadership in policy, research and teaching. Among other accomplishments, I have led multiple extramurally funded research projects on public sector mental health services, currently including an NIMH R01 focused on poverty in early psychosis, and state-sponsored evaluation of the implementation and impact of Assisted Outpatient Treatment (AOT) in New York State.

Honorable Patrick Kennedy

Founder, The Kennedy Forum (Massachusetts)
Email Patrick at pjk4brainhealth@gmail.com | 732.600.7876

  • Patrick is a visionary and thought leader in mental health and addiction. While representing Rhode Island in Congress, he co-authored the Federal Parity Law. Subsequently, he co-founded The Kennedy Forum, One Mind and Psych Hub. In 2013, Kennedy co-authored New York Times Bestseller, A Common Struggle, and in 2024, Profiles in Mental Health Courage. In 2023, Kennedy called for leaders to achieve 90/90/90 by 2033: 90% of individuals will be screened for mental health and SUD; 90% of those screened will be able to receive EBT; 90% of those receiving treatment will be able to manage symptoms in recovery.

Judge Steve Leifman

Judge, 11th Circuit, Miami Dade County (Florida)
Email Steve at sleifman@jud11.flcourts.org | 305.803.3181

  • My journey into the mental health world began 48 years ago when I was a 17 year old intern for a state legislator. My age directly corresponds to the deinstitutionalization movement in this country. As an Intern, I was sent to our local state psychiatric hospital to investigate some concerns about a young patient who was being held there. The hospital was a scene out of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. The young man was in all four point restraints, a 100 lbs overweight from the Thorazine he was receiving and he wasn't even psychotic, he was autistic. I also discovered 7 men in cages lying in their own feces where a guard washed them down with a hose. We got the young man out, but it left an indelible mark on me. 17 years later, I was appointed to the bench and the same horrors that I witnessed at the hospital were now going on across the street in my jail. As a result of a case I handled, we restructured Miami-Dade's approach to people with SMI's. During this period, I was the Chair of our behavioral health managing entity for 9 years, chair of the Miami-Dade Homeless Trust for almost 20 years, a member of the Board of Directors of the Corp. for Supportive Housing, a member of the Board of Directors of the American Psychiatric Association Foundation for 9 years and I lecture and teach at Columbia Univ. Dept. of Psychiatry and the Univ. of Miami School of Medicine. I have been chairing my Circuit's Criminal Mental Health Project for 24 years. As Special Advisor on Mental Hlth to the Fl Sup. Crt and chair of their Steering Committee, I have worked with the Fl. Legislature on many mental health reforms. I was also instrumental in writing the Conf. of Chief Justices Report on Mntl Hlth and the recommendations. As a member of ISMICC, I am working on developing and improving national mental health policy.

    • The Definition of Insanity (PBS): The Miami-Dade Criminal Mental Health Project (CMHP) comes to life in this documentary, following a team of dedicated public servants working through the courts to steer people with mental illness — as their court cases hang in the balance — on a path from incarceration to recovery.

Dr. Mark Ragins

Former Medical Director, Mental Health America Long Beach (California)
Email Mark at markragins@gmail.com | 562.897.2734

Dr. Purva Rawal

Chief Strategy Officer, CMS Innovation Center (Washington, DC)
Email Purva at purva.rawal@cms.hhs.gov | 202.489.7020

Ruth Richardson

President & CEO, Planned Parenthood - Midwest Region (Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa)
Email Ruth at rrichardson1134@gmail.com | 651.329.2334

Josh Seidman

Chief Research & Knowledge Officer, Fountain House (Maryland)
Email Josh at jseidman@fountainhouse.org | 301.455.5386

Dr. Morgan Shields

Assistant Professor, Brown School at Washington University (Missouri)
Email Morgan at mshields@wustl.edu | 954.907.0099

Dr. Yolanda Stevens

Program & Policy Analyst, Older Adults & Healthcare, National Alliance to End Homelessness (Washington, DC)
Email Yolanda at ystevens@naeh.org | 202.942.8245

Dr. Sarah Vinson

Professor and Chair, Morehouse School of Medicine (Georgia)
Email Sarah at svinson@msm.edu | 352.281.5701

  • I grew up in a small town in rural Fl. Both of my parents had ACE scores over 4, but managed to raise me with an ACE of 0. They were both the 2nd of 7 siblings and the go to people in their respective families. I saw the myriad manifestations of trauma, mental illness, mass incarceration and substance use disorder up close and personal, but from a safe base - and with no way to put what I saw into context. My parents were their family members’ re-entry plans and our guest room was the halfway house. I literally had no concept of people with addiction getting treatment or even that it was a disease. That all changed in medical school when I started to learn about first, the neurobiology of addiction, and then of mental illness, and later in residency - trauma. My work, academically, clinically and as a consultant has always been centered on populations disproportionately impacted by inequities, trauma, adverse social determinants of health and over-representation in the carceral system. In my current capacity as a forensic expert and appointee to two state and one federal committees, I leverage that professional experience. Always, however, at the heart of my work, are the personal experiences from the formative years of my life.

Dr. Kate Warburton

Statewide Medical Director, California Department of State Hospitals (California)
Email Kate at katherine.warburton@dsh.ca.gov | 207.632.6309

Stephanie Welch

Deputy Secretary of Behavioral Health, California Health and Human Services Agency (California)
Email Stephanie at stephanie.welch@chhs.ca.gov | 916.214.0980

  • I’ve worked in behavioral policy, program administration, evaluation, and advocacy for 25 years. My senior thesis, “Advocating for the De-Stigmatization of Mental Illness: Forging a New Social Movement”, was more of a personal journey of healing as someone diagnosis with a mental illness than an intellectual exercise and it opened many doors. It led to a rewarding, diverse career of striving to put the person, family, and community at the center of the work. I’m a dedicated social worker who has worked across the continuum of care from suicide prevention to felony mental health diversion at the local and state level in both non-profit and governmental roles. I’m eager to put my experience into action to make radical change.