Products and Resources Catalog

About this Resource: Given the large geographic area and diverse population of the Southeast region, the Southeast MHTTC recognizes that mental health priorities and training needs vary across providers, centers, communities, and states. With this context in mind, we assessed the mental health priorities of our region to inform our future TTA offerings. We focused on the ways in which we could further align the expertise and capacity of the Southeast MHTTC with the priorities and TTA needs of the providers and leaders in the Region IV States. This report outlines key findings from our assessment that will guide the enhancement of our TTA offerings and expand upon the reach of our current work.

Hosts Joey Rodriguez and Lola Nedic discuss culturally responsive strategies and the future of culturally responsive care. This podcast episode is sponsored by the New England Mental Health Technology Transfer Center Network (MHTTC).

Access the Recording of this Training Here The purpose of this presentation is to help Mental Health and Substance Use providers as well as the Recovery Community at large better understand the potential support needs of people with IDD with or without co-occurring Mental Health and/or Substance Use Challenges that they interact with either socially, academically, and/or professionally by providing examples of potential support needs and methods that can be used to help address support needs.  Learning Objectives:  By the end of the presentation attendees will be able to:  Define Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities  Identify different potential support needs of people with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities including vital support needs around Sensory Processing Disorders like Tactile Dysfunction and Proprioceptive Dysfunction  Execute a more trauma informed and person-centered approach to interacting with persons with Proprioceptive Dysfunction and/or Tactile Dysfunction About the Presenter:  Jordan Smelley is a Mental Health Peer Support Specialist in Texas and a person in long-term recovery from Intellectual and Developmental Differences with Co-occurring Mental Health challenges. Jordan partly defines his own recovery in relation to the opportunities available to present and educate the community on topics around supporting persons with IDD.  Jordan was awarded the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Texas Chapter’s Empowerment Award for Excellence in Promotion of Self-Advocacy at its 47th Annual Convention on November 16, 2023, in recognition of Jordan’s Self-Advocacy efforts around expanding supports available to persons with Intellectual and/or Developmental Differences.

The second issue of our Northwest MHTTC March newsletter highlights the 2024 Integrated Care Conference, our new podcast episode, and other events and resources of interest. View the new issue.

The New England MHTTC’s area of focus is the resilience and recovery of persons (and their loved ones) at risk for, living with or recovering from mental health challenges. During the reporting period, we continued to support and enhance the region’s capacity to provide equity-focused, recovery-oriented care across several dimensions. Our training and technical assistance (T/TA) explicitly aim to help promote recovery-oriented behavioral health systems of care and to move these systems beyond an acute care model to better meet the needs of persons with prolonged mental illness or substance use disorders (Davidson et al., 2021). A central aspect of recovery-oriented systems of care is the inclusion of people with lived experience at all levels of partnership–from service users, families, and direct peer support service providers to clinicians, managers, and administrators. Our T/TA aims to honor and promote those with lived experience in all our activities. The content and process of our work is grounded in our Guiding Principles on Resilience and Recovery. Consistent with these principles, we take an equity-minded approach to recovery-oriented care which recognizes that even the most progressive treatment systems exist within a social context where people of color and other historically marginalized groups often experience—both individually and collectively—an additional layer of trauma that has devastating consequences on their health and well-being. We are committed to proactively advancing social justice and racial equity as an essential component of recovery-oriented systems transformation across the New England region.

At the end of this presentation, participants were able to: Recognize the importance of understanding the historical context of the lives of older African Americans Recognize the importance of eliciting the older African American’s perspective of his/her mental and physical health challenges Elicit socio-cultural and spiritual beliefs that could influence an older African American’s health care choices and access to care Enhance knowledge of assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of major mental health disorders when working with older African Americans   Presenter: Martha Crowler, PhD   This webinar was presented in collaboration with the Massachusetts Mental Health Center GrandRounds series.

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.   February's topic was "Native Crisis Response (Part Two) – Escalation and De-escalation and Native Implications."

This webinar provided tips for working with families of individuals with psychosis in outpatient community settings. Questions that were addressed include:   How can I develop a good working relationship with families in order to support care even though I don’t have a lot of experience working with families and I have a large caseload? How can I manage confidentiality? How can I help families develop a better understanding of their relative and their symptoms and treatment? What are some important considerations for providing culturally responsive care when working with families? What can I learn to feel more equipped to support families entering care in the context of a recent onset of psychotic symptoms?   Presenter: Julie M. McCarthy, PhD, is a clinician-scientist in the Division of Psychotic Disorders at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts. Her research aims to identify neurobiological and psychosocial treatment targets and develop/evaluate treatments for individuals and families experiencing co-occurring psychotic and substance use disorders.

Participants will be able to define a school-wide crisis and an individual student emergency, understand incident management guidelines at each phase, and identify possible barriers to school emergency responses in order to positively engage leadership/staff during an emergency.

Recording for the National Center for School Mental Health led event Understanding and Preventing Youth Suicide, originally held on February 13, 2024. Slide presentation

March 6 (Session 1) To view resources from this training, please click ATTACHMENT links Click here to watch the recording March 7 (Session 2) To view resources from this training, please click ATTACHMENT links Click here to watch the recording Series Description Implicit bias is insidious in nature; we all have them. Many of these biases are formed through inaccurate information, such as stereotypes, the patterns established by oppressive systems, and even by internalized oppression. Since implicit biases operate outside our conscious control, they can be harmful yet unrecognized barriers to collective liberation and to our individual wellbeing. This interactive workshop will cover concepts and strategies for participants to heal from bias and systemic racism in order to better live our values on an individual and systemic level. We will engage in various forms of mindful and contemplative practices and spend time strategizing to embed them into our lives to support our collective healing. Due to time constraints in this workshop, we will not be covering foundational concepts of DEI in these sessions. We will focus on practices to mitigate bias and to interrupt it in others. Therefore, participants must already have a baseline understanding of implicit bias, systemic oppression, social identities, intersectionality, systemic privilege and marginalization, and equity. Learning Objectives: Participants will delve deeper into how implicit bias is formed, how to recognize and redress it in one’s self, and practice talk moves to support them in addressing others’ biases. Participants will explore how to address microaggressions and strategies to scale up their response in order to establish a culture of belonging for every student, family, and staff. Participants will have an open frame to explore the culmination of their learning, delve into resources to continue their work in this topic, and examine scenarios to authentically push their theoretical understanding of implicit bias into praxis. Trainer Dr. Rana Razzaque Dr. Rana Razzaque’s commitment to improving opportunity, access, and inclusion for all children has driven her educational and professional journey. This commitment has deepened over time due to her own lived experiences and the continuous learning she seeks out on a variety of topics related to equity and inclusion, the persistent disparities for marginalized communities, and the deep need to build understanding and empathy through courageous conversations with people from multiple perspectives. Rana was born in Bangladesh, raised in Maryland, spent her adolescence in Texas, and spent a couple of years in Arizona before moving to Denver in 2011. In the warmer months, you might find Rana hiking with her husband, Rob, and her dog Eeyore. She also loves reading (especially fiction and poetry), trying out new recipes to cook, going to concerts, boxing, and indoor rock climbing (even though she is afraid of heights). Rana received her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in English Literature from the University of Texas at Austin and Arizona State University, respectively, and focused her thesis research on the impact of literary influence on colonizing South Asia in the 17th century. In 2017, she earned her Doctorate in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies from the University of Denver and focused her dissertation research on how mindfulness influences the culturally responsive practices of educators. Rana has served as Social Emotional Learning Partner in Denver Public Schools, Program Development Coordinator with Sources of Strength, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Specialist at Jeffco Public Schools, and is now the Director of Opportunity, Access, and Inclusion at Englewood Schools in Colorado. Her work intersects culturally responsive and sustaining practices with social-emotional learning and transformative educational leadership. Rana’s mission is to ensure that youth and educators have an intentional focus on honoring diverse cultures and identities, utilizing challenges as opportunities to build resilience, and holistically supporting themselves and others to equitably reach their highest potential.

​VIEW WEBINAR RECORDING ABOUT THIS RESOURCE White Trauma: Creating space for white people’s vulnerability with the hopes of undoing the perpetuation of structural/systemic racism. Racism, at its most basic level, is a lens though which people interpret, naturalize, and reproduce inequality. We all struggle to truly see one another due to the conditioning and trauma that has been imposed upon us, which becomes the breeding ground for implicit bias and racial disconnection. This is one of the factors that makes it so difficult for us, as mental health professionals, to have real conversations about things that matter; things that heal. Racism is not a “white” issue it is a systematic/structural issue designed to keep in place white cultural dominance. This system has caused harm to us all.  All of us have biases and they go where we go--in our homes, workspace, schools, community etc. It is critical for space to be created for white people to be able to acknowledge and address their own trauma, without shame or guilt, so true racial healing and mental health healing can begin. If the trauma in white bodies is not healed, then it will be passed on to the next generation and continue the cycle. What is in us will come out, unintentionally or intentionally, because The Body Keeps the Score. ADDITIONAL RESOURCES Presentation Resources  White Trauma Slides Race Baiting 101 Video White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo,PhD Project Implicit - IAT Implicit Association Tests Fire in the Ashes by Jonathan Kozol The Pain We Carry - Healing from Complex PTSD for People of Color by Natalie Y. Gutiérrez, LMFT Caste by Isabel Wilkerson A Space for Us - A Guide for Leading Black, Indigenous, and People of Color Affinity Groups by Michelle Cassandra Johnson Why People of Color Need Spaces Without White People by Kelsey Blackwell   FACILITATOR Sherronda Jamerson, MA, SUDP Sherronda Jamerson obtained a master’s degree in Clinical Psychology in 2012 from City University College in Seattle, WA, and became certified as a Chemical Dependency Professional in 2007. Her experiences include developing, implementing, and presenting EDI trainings to associations of healthcare professionals, healthcare providers, schools, and community-based organizations. She has also presented at state and national behavioral health conferences on the topics of DEI and Healthcare Equity. She presents with confidence and passion. Terms of use and Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) disclosure statement ​

To view resources from this training, click ATTACHMENT link Click here to watch the recording Event Description This didactic lecture will review the conceptual basis and empiric evidence linking firearm access to suicide risk and provide clinicians with basic knowledge, language, and strategies to facilitate secure firearm storage solutions among patients identified as having elevated suicide risk. Trainer Joe Simonetti Joe Simonetti is a clinician investigator with the VA Rocky Mountain MIRECC for Suicide Prevention and Director of Mentorship and Education for the Firearm Injury Prevention Initiative at the University of Colorado Anschutz School of Medicine. His research focuses on developing patient-centered firearm injury prevention interventions for individuals at risk of suicide. As an educator, he works locally and nationally to support VA and community-based clinicians in delivering evidence-based and culturally informed counseling interventions.

About this Resource: This is the on-demand recording from part 1 of our 4-part series that introduces participants to the tenets of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and guides them from the introductory stage to applied practice with different mental health conditions and scenarios. Participants learn and practice strategies from each tenet of ACT ranging from brief interventions to more in-depth processes. The first session introduces the complete ACT framework and ACT hexaflex and provides an overarching discussion of the goals of this psychotherapy orientation. Similarities and differences with other orientations are discussed to contextualize the ACT perspective. This session also introduces the area of Creative Hopelessness and begins the discussion around case conceptualization. Resources for ongoing learning are shared.

About this Resource:  This on-demand recording is from the 2nd session in our 4-part series "Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT): From Introduction to Applied Practice." Throughout the series, participants are introduced to the tenets of ACT and guided from the introductory stage to applied practice with different mental health conditions and scenarios. Participants learn and practice strategies from each tenet of ACT ranging from brief interventions to more in-depth processes. The second session focuses on Values and Committed Action in the ACT framework. Rationale, underlying processes, and strategies for practice are discussed with an opportunity for experiential practice.

About this Resource:  This on-demand recording is from the 3rd session in our 4-part series "Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT): From Introduction to Applied Practice." Throughout the series, participants are introduced to the tenets of ACT and guided from the introductory stage to applied practice with different mental health conditions and scenarios. Participants learn and practice strategies from each tenet of ACT ranging from brief interventions to more in-depth processes. The third session focuses on Present Moment Awareness and Self as Context in the ACT framework. Rationale, underlying processes, and strategies for practice are discussed.

About this Resource:  This on-demand recording is from the final session in our 4-part series "Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT): From Introduction to Applied Practice." Throughout the series, participants are introduced to the tenets of ACT and guided from the introductory stage to applied practice with different mental health conditions and scenarios. Participants learn and practice strategies from each tenet of ACT ranging from brief interventions to more in-depth processes. The final session focuses on Acceptance and Defusion in the ACT framework. Rationale, underlying processes, and strategies for practice are discussed.

The first issue of our Northwest MHTTC March 2024 newsletter features Developmental Disabilities Awareness Month and National Social Work Month, upcoming Northwest MHTTC webinars, and spotlights other events and resources of interest. View here

Session learning objectives: Provide an overview of the prevalence of mental health challenges among youth before and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Examine specific groups of youth that may be more vulnerable to mental health challenges post-pandemic. Explore pandemic-related changes in behavior patterns and coping mechanisms adopted by youth, including the role of technology. Describe ways in which schools can identify students who experience persistent challenges and implement school-based programs to best support these youth.  

Recording of the event Early-Stage Psychosis: The Basics and Best Practice Updates, originally held on February 29, 2024.    

  To view resources from this session, click DOWNLOAD Click here to watch the recording Event Description This workshop will provide participants with an overview of eating disorders (ED), including eating disorder definitions, medical complications associated with ED, eating disorder statistics and prevalence, athletes and eating disorders, causes according to the biopsychosocial model,  signs/symptoms/red flags that school workers need to be aware of, communicating with students and their families about a suspected ED, and an overview of treatment that works (Family Based Treatment). The workshop will also emphasize the schools’ involvement in ED treatment and crucial points to keep in mind when developing education plans for students in ED treatment.   Learning Objectives: At the end of this session, participants will be able to explain: 1. the difference between Anorexia, Bulimia, and Binge Eating Disorder, including warning signs 2. each element of the Biopsychosocial model that is used to understand EDs 3. how to communicate with students and their families about a suspected ED 4. a variety of school accommodations to consider when a student returns from ED treatment Trainer Wendy Price, PsyD, NCSP Dr. Price completed her doctorate in School Psychology at William James College, following a year-long clinical internship at Walden Behavioral Care (a residential eating disorders clinic). For the past 20 years, Dr. Price has worked as a school psychologist at Whitman-Hanson Regional High School, in Whitman, MA. In her role, Dr. Price is involved in a number of activities, including assessment, counseling, consultation, supervision of school psychology interns, and mentoring of staff. She is also a Crisis Team and Student/Teacher Assistance Team member. She is also an Adjunct Lecturer at UMASS Boston. Dr. Price has traveled around the country, presenting to associations and school districts on positive psychology, eating disorders, and self-injurious behaviors. Dr. Price has been involved in leadership at both the state and national level, and was the NASP President in 2020-2021.

  To view resources from this training, click DOWNLOAD Click here to watch the recording   Event Description As part of our ongoing efforts to support the mental health needs of college students, we are proud to present a workshop focused on understanding how to effectively support young people as they move from high school into young adulthood. This workshop will provide information about anxiety in children, adolescents, and emerging adults. Attendees will gain a deeper understanding of psychosocial developmental milestones (e.g., independence, emotion regulation, identity formation) and the ways in which anxiety, stress, and sociocultural factors can interfere with the successful transition to young adulthood. Practical strategies for assessment and tools to support youth independence and college or workforce readiness will be reviewed. Dr. Lauren Hoffman will lead this training.  She is a clinical psychologist in New York City, who previously worked at the Columbia University Clinic for Anxiety and Related Disorders (CUCARD).  She has an extensive background and a passion for working with children and young adults. Please note:  This Workshop Wednesday training was moved due to scheduling conflicts.  This training will be recorded for later viewing. Trainer Lauren Hoffman, Psy.D. Clinical Psychologist Dr. Hoffman is a New York City-based licensed clinical psychologist specializing in treating anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder, and related challenges, including perfectionism, stress, sleep issues, and school or work problems. I have expertise in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Exposure and Response Prevention (ExRP), as well as mindfulness and acceptance-based techniques. I work with children, teens, and adults, with a particular emphasis on young adults navigating developmental transitions and challenges. Dr. Hoffman received her B.A. with honors in psychology from the University of Pennsylvania. She received her doctorate in clinical psychology from the Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology at Rutgers University. Dr. Hoffman completed her predoctoral clinical internship at NYU Child Study Center/Bellevue Hospital Center and her postdoctoral fellowship at Columbia University Clinic for Anxiety and Related Disorders at Columbia University Medical Center. Dr. Hoffman has advanced training and expertise in evidence-based treatment approaches, including Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Exposure and Response Prevention (ExRP), and Behavioral Activation. She regularly integrates mindfulness, acceptance techniques, and values-based approaches into her practice. For more information, click here.

To view resources from this training, click ATTACHMENT links Click here to watch the recording Event Description This presentation will provide an overview of the Multicultural Orientation (MCO) model and its pillars: Cultural Humility, Cultural Comfort, and Cultural Opportunities. The research demonstrating the strong relationship between MCO and both psychotherapeutic and supervisory processes and outcomes will be discussed. Finally, recommendations for working toward strengthening one’s MCO will be provided. Trainer Melanie Wilcox, PhD, ABPP Dr. Melanie Wilcox is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychological Sciences, Institute of Public and Preventive Health, and Department of Psychiatry at Augusta University. She is also a licensed psychologist and board certified in counseling psychology and works part-time in private practice providing both therapy and assessment via telehealth. Her clinical areas of expertise include culturally responsive and trauma-informed care as well as substance abuse and addiction. Her research focuses on culturally response and antiracist psychotherapy and training, racial and socioeconomic inequity in higher education, and racial and social justice more broadly. She is in her final year as a member of the American Psychological Association’s Board of Educational Affairs, which she chaired in 2020, and is currently President Elect-Elect of APA Division 17, the Society of Counseling Psychology.

About this Resource: In this on-demand recording presenters share ways that spirituality/religion (S/R) can promote strengths and struggles in the context of mental health challenges as well as discuss the process for offering spiritually competent care within mental health service organizations. Participants discover ways to collaborate with faith-based organizations in order to provide more holistic and long-term care as well as assess one's own clinical competence at attending to a client's spirituality/religion.