2016 Conference: Introducing This Years’ Plenary Speakers

The CMHACY Board and Friends are pleased to present three exceptional plenary speakers presenting on the following topics for the 2016 CMHACY Conference.

Kappy Madenwald: Achieving the Promise of Family-Centeredness in Care Delivery

Chacku Mathai: Beyond Resilience: Discovering the Tools for Thriving as a Community

Dayna Long: Addressing Inequities in Health Care

The following descriptions provide more information about each of these sessions. We are looking forward to having you join us for these informative and inspirational sessions.

Wednesday, May 11, 2:00 pm

Achieving the Promise of Family-Centeredness in Care Delivery

Kappy Madenwald      

We have used the term for years, but what is family-centeredness about at its finest? What is it like to experience? If a program STARTS to deliver family-centered care, what must it necessarily STOP doing? How can we use the treatment experiences of youth and their families to realign how we think about and build effective systems of care and deliver services? Kappy will lead us through a thought-provoking and immersive journey as we consider when care is productive and when it is counterproductive; when it helps and when it harms; and ultimately, whether family-centeredness is about being nice or about getting results.

Kappy has extensive experience in mobile community-based and hospital-based crisis intervention services. She specializes in the design, implementation and evaluation of person-centered service delivery systems – including comprehensive state or community crisis systems – that are integrated at a systems and direct care level, are delivered in a fashion that promotes self-direction and recovery, are least restrictive/least intensive in nature and that are designed to assure timely and purposeful movement through care. Kappy has worked directly on state level service planning and implementation initiatives in Massachusetts, Maryland, Iowa, North Carolina and Georgia and at a regional/local level in Oregon, Pennsylvania and California. She has also provided direct technical assistance to numerous county, regional, and local authorities or nonprofit organizations throughout the U.S. Kappy was a principle contributor to the monograph: A Community-Based Comprehensive Psychiatric Crisis Response System (TAC 2005). In addition, she is the Director of Operations for the Annapolis Coalition on the Behavioral Health Workforce, which is dedicated to improving the recruitment, retention, training, and performance of the prevention and treatment workforce in the mental health and addictions sectors of the behavioral health field.

Wednesday, May 11, 7:00 pm

Beyond Resilience: Discovering the Tools for Thriving as a Community

Chacku Mathai

The STAR Center offers national technical assistance on youth leadership development as an essential strategy for systems transformation.  As opportunities for meaningful change develop across the country, we need to engage each other, our families, and our communities across silos and service sectors.  Chacku Mathai will focus on how to prepare for collaboration across silos, support grassroots involvement, and move beyond resilience in our own lives and communities with a focus on the tools for thriving.

Chacku Mathai has over thirty years of experience in mental health and addiction community based services in a wide variety of roles from youth leadership and community organizing to executive and board management.  An Indian-American, born in Kuwait, Chacku first became involved in mental health and addiction recovery advocacy when he was 15 years old.   His personal experiences as a youth and young adult in mental health and addiction recovery in New York launched Chacku and his family towards a number of efforts to advocate for improved services and alternative supports in the community.  He currently serves as the Director for the NAMI STAR Center, one of five National Technical Assistance Centers funded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) of the US Department of Health and Human Services.

Thursday, May 12, 9:00 am

Addressing Inequities in Health Care

Dayna Long  

Dayna will focus on how disparities lead to poor health outcomes and how we can research and implement programs to promote equity.

Dayna Long is a pediatrician at Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland and the Medical Director of the Center for Community Health and Engagement, which is dedicated to advancing equity by partnering with communities to promote preventative health and wellbeing for all children and their families. She is the co-Founder and Medical Director of the Family Information and Navigation Desk (FIND), which addresses the social and environmental factors that profoundly impact health outcomes. Via culturally responsive community Navigators and evidence-based best practices, patients are connected to community-based resources that satisfy unmet basic needs such as food insecurity, housing, tobacco cessation, physical activity, childcare, as well as mental health and developmental services. Dr. Long is a Spokeswoman for “Too Small to Fail: Talk, Read, Sing”, which encourages early literacy and brain development by having caregivers in low-income communities, starting at birth and daily thereafter, talk, read and sing to their babies. Dr. Long is an adviser for the White House Bridging the Word Gap Incentive Prize challenge and part of the national Bridging the Word Gap Research Network. She has done research in health disparities, social determinants of health, and community health. As a steering committee member of First Five-Alameda County/Help Me Grow, Dr. Long advocates for children. In 2014, she received a National Service Award from the Corporation for National Service and joined Presidents Bill Clinton and Obama at the White House to celebrate national community service. In 2015, she was accepted into the Harvard Macy’s Institute Leading Innovations in Health Care Cohort. For 2016, Dr. Long is the Girls Inc, Alameda STRONG awardee.