Products and Resources Catalog

Many practitioners know "the basics" of virtual treatment and seek support in improving their effectiveness & strategies. This desk guide provides resources, information, and quick tips for practitioners working with youth in virtual settings.  This guide was created by WAFCA with funding from the Great Lakes MHTTC and is based on material presented by Lisa Anderson, LPC, CSW, in spring 2021.

Hosted by SAMHSA, the MHTTC Network, and Abt Associates, this webinar highlights findings from SAMHSA's Guide, Best Practices for Successful Reentry From Criminal Justice Settings for People Living With Mental Health Conditions and/or Substance Use Disorders, which explores evidence-based strategies and promising practices to address community reentry from jail or prison. Following an overview of the goals of SAMHSA’s Evidence-Based Resource Guide Series by SAMHSA’s Joe Bullock; Angel Sanchez, Bureau of Justice Assistance, from the guide’s technical expert panel, discusses this guide’s development. Stephanie Fahy, Abt Associates, provides an overview of the framing of the guide, describing factors impacting reentry, and relevant evidence-based strategies for successful reentry. Representatives from organizations featured in the guide’s case studies discuss the development of their policies or programs to address reentry for individuals living with mental health conditions and/or substance use disorders. Access the guide here. Download the slides by clicking on the "download" button above.

National Recovery Month (Recovery Month), which started in 1989, is a national observance held every September to promote and support new evidence-based treatment and recovery practices, the nation’s strong and proud recovery community, and the dedication of service providers and communities who make recovery in all its forms possible. Hosted by the ATTC, and MHTTC Network, in collaboration with SAMHSA, this hour-long event showcases the winners of the 2022 Recovery Innovation Challenge through a “talk-show” format. Hear from four of the ten Challenge Winners who share their innovative strategies for recovery, lessons learned from implementation, and recommendations for replication in other communities. Download the slides by clicking on the "download" button above.

  The Great Lakes Current is the e-newsletter of the Great Lakes ATTC, MHTTC, and PTTC.   The September 2023 issue honors National Recovery Month, National Hispanic Heritage Month, Addiction Professionals Appreciation Day (September 20), and the 10th anniversary of the ATTC/NIATx Service Improvement Blog! As always, you will also find links to all upcoming events and trainings hosted by the Great Lakes ATTC, MHTTC, and PTTC!  

Available in both English and Español! Trauma-informed care and culturally responsive care are two important mental health service delivery approaches that are increasingly recognized as necessary for providing effective and equitable mental health care. Latino communities in Ohio face several challenges, including limited accessibility to healthcare services, particularly mental health care, and a lack of multicultural and multilingual clinicians. Implementing culturally responsive and trauma-informed approaches can effectively support mental health professionals to address the needs of Hispanic and Latino populations in Ohio. By providing accessible, sensitive, and tailored care, professionals can promote help-seeking behaviors, healing, resilience, and well-being within these communities.      

Available in both English and Español! Los cuidados de salud mental culturalmente sensibles e informados en trauma, son dos enfoques que se reconocen cada vez más como necesarios para brindar servicios de forma eficaz y equitativa. Las comunidades latinas en Ohio enfrentan varios desafíos, incluyendo la accesibilidad limitada a los servicios de salud primarios, en particular los servicios de salud mental, y la falta de clínicos multiculturales y multilingües. La implementación de enfoques culturalmente sensibles y basados en el trauma puede ayudar de manera efectiva a los profesionales de la salud mental a abordar las necesidades de las poblaciones hispanas y latinas en Ohio. Al brindar atención accesible, sensible y personalizada, los profesionales pueden promover la búsqueda de ayuda, sanación, resiliencia y de bienestar dentro de estas comunidades.      

This is a recording of Region 9's webinar, "California CARE Court: What Providers Need to Know" that took place on August 8, 2023.    In this session, the Pacific Southwest MHTTC brought together key stakeholders in the California’s CARE Act, including Orange County’s Chief of Mental Health and Recovery Services Dr Veronica Kelley, Urban Los Angeles NAMI Executive Director Harold Turner, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Honorable James Bianco and the former Director of the Saks Institute for Mental Health Law, Policy, and Ethics, Christopher Schneiders.  These subject area experts each presented an overview of the CARE Act and discussed the opportunities and challenges to self-determination for individuals with serious mental illness (SDM, PADs, Care Plans). Pacific Southwest MHTTC’s Research Associate, Amanda Lipp moderated this panel and a discussion on the CARE Act's new framework for family members and other stakeholders to petition the courts and provide support during the CARE process.   This panel presentation video is suitable for a viewership of leaders within the peer, family-advocacy, judicial, and mental health field.

This comprehensive guide is designed to support BIPOC employees, allies, and leadership in fostering a more inclusive and supportive workplace environment. By recognizing and addressing the unique challenges faced by People of Color, promoting allyship, and empowering leadership, we can create a workplace where everyone feels valued, supported, and able to thrive.   This guide provides practical strategies, exercises, and resources to enhance well-being and promote equity within your organization. View a series of webinars for guidance and support for the use and implementation of the guide: Day 1 recording Day 2 recording Day 3 recording

Participants learned how to:  Describe how both positive and negative attentional biases may contribute to suicide risk  Describe the Broaden and Build theory of positive emotions  Describe specific strategies to increase one's attention to positive emotions and experiences   Presenter: Shirley Yen, PhD, Associate Professor, Psychology, Harvard Medical School This hybrid event was co-hosted by Sadhguru Center for a Conscious Planet.

The language of the written word is too limiting for efforts to communicate mental health awareness. Image and sound, which have been used to communicate and teach since ancient times, are much more powerful. Film and other audiovisual media are important ways to promote mental health and reduce stigma and can help enhance emotional and intellectual harmony. Presenter: Mohan Agashe, MD   View a recording of this 8/25/23 session here. 

A joint project of the National Federation of Families, National Family Support Technical Assistance Center, and the New England Mental Health Technology Transfer Center, this tip sheet provides vetted resources and links for school, family, and community leaders to address school culture and climate. Access this publication for tips on what families, parents, caregivers, individual educators, family peer specialists, and mental health providers can do to address the young person engaging in bullying behavior while school and family leaders address school culture and climate and support the child being bullied.

At the New England MHTTC, we believe that agencies and organizations can benefit from applying a racial equity lens to their structure and activities. “A racial equity lens is a set of questions we ask ourselves when we are planning, developing or evaluating a policy, program or decision. It helps us assess if we are taking in the perspectives of the racially diverse people and communities we intend to serve, and whether our policies and programs are resulting in equitable or inequitable outcomes. An equity lens helps us see where challenges and opportunities exist, so that we can make intentional steps to ensure more equitable outcomes for all individuals and communities.” Asking meaningful questions is key. In order to compile the questions for consideration below, the TTC Network conducted a review of approximately 50 organizational and community assessment tools and resources available from the website, Racial Equity Tools. We pulled and synthesized questions from these materials, as well as direct resources from the New England MHTTC, to determine questions most applicable for our work. By providing this resource, we are not signifying that this is a complete list of questions to consider in order to achieve racial equity. We aim to spur thinking and action among the agencies, organizations, and collaborators in our community and we acknowledge that this is just one step in a longer, more integrated and comprehensive process.

Compassionate Listening is... A personal practice – to cultivate inner strength, self awareness, self regulation and wisdom. A skill set – to enhance interpersonal relations and navigate challenging conversation. A process – to bring individuals or groups together to bridge their differences and transform conflict A healing gift – to offer a compassionate listening session to a person who feels marginalized or in pain.   These principles, adapted with permission from the Compassionate Listening Project,, guide the engagements of the New England MHTTC's Racial Equity and Advancing Cultural Humility (REACH) for Organizational Change Learning Collaborative. We encourage you to use these principles as you engage in frank and honest conversations in the workplace. The principles are designed to keep the dialogue grounded so that you can focus your energy on cultivating compassion and respect for others; serving as a witness to another's truth; and listening and speaking from the heart.  

Issues stemming from race and other cultural matters are broad and varied. Individuals and organizations will find that they are quite knowledgeable and proficient in some aspects of cultural competence, and yet, may neglect asking crucial questions in another area. For instance, we may be acutely aware of making focus group (or other) accommodations for the hearing impaired community, but may not have a cache of options to make public health programs accessible to non-native English speakers. When you begin to consider your approach to engagement with diverse communities, you can gauge how and why mainstream strategies have a lower effectiveness and work from a more culturally responsive foundation. Ultimately, the more your work stems from relevant aspects of racial and cultural identity, the greater your chances for effective outcomes and increased, sustainable engagement from a broader, more diverse community. In assessing your agency/organization's capacity for cultural responsiveness, it is useful to have a tool that is focused on core ways to interpret the wide range of behaviors and attitudes that are expressed in the policies and practices of an organization. Our Process of Gaining Cultural Competence represents a continuum into which we can place behaviors, attitudes, policies, and practices. This is intended to be a dynamic tool, since there is always room for growth and development in individuals, organizations, and institutionalized policies and practices.

This social media toolkit includes six posts that each debunk a different myth around suicide. Feel free to share on your own networks!

Despite impacting tens of thousands of people each year, there are still many misconceptions surrounding suicide. It is of utmost importance that we begin to breakdown these misunderstandings by providing up-to-date information and education. The South Southwest MHTTC has put together four posts for social media that offer a unique "fast fact." Please feel free to share these posts across your social networks.

Asking a loved one about suicide is never an easy conversation. However, the act of talking about suicide can save a life and provide an opportunity for a struggling friend or family member to share their feelings and get support. We have put together a brief guide to facilitate a conversation with someone about suicide and compiled some useful resources. We hope that you feel empowered to check in on your loved ones and to share this resource with others this Suicide Prevention month.

In furthering our efforts to meet people where they are and foster healthy practices in adolescents and youth, the Great Lakes MHTTC and Wisconsin PATCH (Providers and Teens Communicating for Health) asked teens to describe the best ways adults can partner with youth and what motivates young people to get involved with organizations like PATCH. The responses featured in this resource were provided by teenage participants of the PATCH Teen Educators program.    This product was created with our valued partners at Wisconsin PATCH.  

  Internal Family Systems (IFS, sometimes nicknamed "Parts Work") is an evidence-based model of psychotherapy that acknowledges that the mind naturally contains multiple parts with different purposes, needs, and stories. When our inner parts feel safe and have their concerns addressed, our core self knows how to heal, allowing us to become integrated and whole. Today, IFS has a legacy of effectiveness in the treatment of trauma and in addressing a variety of mental health concerns. This guide was created by WAFCA with funding from the Great Lakes MHTTC and is based on material presented by Dr. Frank Anderson on March 23, 2023 for WAFCA-CE.   WAFCA serves as the Wisconsin partner for the Great Lakes MHTTC. 

Counselors have the privilege of working with individuals and families from various backgrounds; intersecting identities; and cultural values, beliefs, and traditions. Deliberately incorporating culturally responsive care in mental health settings can help ensure that individuals have access to treatment that meets their needs. This guide was created by WAFCA with funding from the Great Lakes MHTTC and is based on material presented by Dr. Patricia Arredondo on February 17, 2022, for WAFCA-CE. WAFCA serves as the Wisconsin partner for the Great Lakes MHTTC. 

Understanding the essential pieces to effective treatment is beneficial for new and seasoned counselors alike. In each session and with each client, mental health providers work to do many things at once: build rapport, practice active listening, navigate triggers and distractions for themselves and clients, create an environment of safety, provide support and regulation, monitor time, and more. This guide was created by WAFCA with funding from the Great Lakes MHTTC and is based on material presented by Kelli Underwood on June 8, 2023, for WAFCA-CE. WAFCA serves as the Wisconsin partner for the Great Lakes MHTTC. 

The one-hour Reclaiming Native Psychological Brilliance virtual series provides an opportunity for participants to: Gain skills on strength-based approaches in partnership with Native People to enhance Native behavioral health, and Discuss ways that Native brilliance is demonstrated and supports behavioral health, and Learn about Native brilliance examples to share with behavioral health and other health care staff, as well as with local Tribal Nation citizens The concept of Native psychological brilliance will be celebrated through Native music videos and Native spoken word performances as part of each session of the Reclaiming Native Psychological Brilliance series.   July's topic was "Native Crisis Response: Tribal 988 Successes and Challenges."   Watch a recording of this 7/25/23 session here. 

In collaboration with the Connecticut State Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services (DMHAS) and its Office of Multicultural Health Equity, the New England MHTTC supported a training and technical assistance activity highlighting the stats and statistics around the state of minority mental health in Connecticut.   While the statistics help to validate that the rates of mental health illness are similar across racial groups, they also conceal a deeper inequity. What you can’t tell from the numbers is how the severity, persistence, contributing factors, and implications for the overall well-being of mental health conditions vary widely across demographic groups. This event aims to raise awareness, foster dialogue, and share strategies that support optimal behavioral health treatment, care, and recovery for minoritized populations.   Featured Speakers Nancy Navarretta, MA, DMHAS Commissioner Charles Dike, FRCPsych, MBChB, MPH, DMHAS Medical Director Karin Haberlin, Behavioral Health Program Manager, DMHAS Jessica Isom, MD, MPH, Keynote Speaker, Vision for Equity, LLC Taylor Bryan Turner, Assistant Regional Director, SAMHSA Region 1   View a recording of this 7/27/23 session here.  

  The Great Lakes Current is the e-newsletter of the Great Lakes ATTC, MHTTC, and PTTC.   The August 2023 issue honors International Overdose Awareness Day (August 31), opioid overdose prevention training on HealtheKnowledge, and the newest NIATx in New Places series blog post written by Lynn Madden, PhD, MPA.  And as always, you will find links to all upcoming events and trainings hosted by the Great Lakes ATTC, MHTTC, and PTTC!