Join the Conversation: Achieving Whole Health (AWH)

About the Session:

In this fifth 90-minute session of the Culturally Responsive Evidence-Based and Community-Defined Practices for Mental Health Series, we:

• Discuss how Achieving Whole Health (AWH) is being implemented with various cultural groups across the Network/in different regions.
• Highlight additional culturally responsive “AWH practices” being utilized across the Network/in different regions.
• Share lessons learned during the implementation of AWH (i.e., Balancing AWH and the cultural needs of the people served).

Session Materials:

Access the recording of this session by clicking the blue "View Resource" button above.

• Access presentation slides here.
• Access our FAQ and Resources document (that includes responses to questions asked by participants during the live event) here.
• MHTTC Achieving Whole Health Fact Sheet is available here.
• Access the audio transcript for this session here.
• To access other sessions in this series, please click here.

Session Facilitators and Panelists:

Dr. Pata Suyemoto is a feminist scholar, writer, educator, diversity trainer, mental health activist, jewelry designer, and avid bicyclist. She is the co-chair for the Greater Boston Regional Suicide Prevention Coalition and the chair of the Massachusetts Coalition for Suicide Prevention (MCSP) Alliance for Equity’s People of Color Caucus. Pata is a co- author of Widening the Lens: Exploring the Role of Social Justice in Suicide Prevention – A Racial Equity Toolkit. She has spoken and written about her struggles with depression and is a co-founder of The Breaking Silences Project, which is an artistic endeavor that educates about the high rates of depression and suicide among Asian American young women. She is also a long-time volunteer for Asian Women for Health and is a trainer and wellness coach for the National Asian American Pacific Islander Mental Health Association’s (NAAPIMHA) Achieving Whole Health program.

Dr. Rachele Espiritu is the co-director of SAMHSA's Pacific Southwest Mental Health Technology Transfer Center (Hawaii, California, Arizona, Nevada, and the Pacific Islands). Dr. Espiritu provides training, technical assistance, and capacity building at the local, territory, tribal, state, and national level in multiple systems, including mental health, substance use, public health, and education. She is a founding partner with Change Matrix LLC, a minority- and women-owned small business that motivates, manages and measures change to support systems that improve lives. She is a former School Board Member of Denver Public Schools (DPS), where she provided direction and leadership for Whole Child efforts and successfully passed a resolution for DPS to become a trauma-informed school district.

Dr. Martha Staeheli is the School Mental Health Site Lead for the New England MHTTC and an Instructor in the Yale School of Medicine Department of Psychiatry.