Past Events

Increasing access to evidence-based treatments (EBT)s for children with mental health needs is a national priority. Different states are experiencing a variety of implementation, policy, and resource challenges. This webinar will describe Connecticut’s approach to scaling outpatient and school-based EBTs over the past 12 years, including implementation strategies, outcomes, and lessons learned. Join us to learn about their experience and engage in facilitated chat with your colleagues around New England.   Learning Objectives:   1. Participants will be able to describe implementation strategies for and approaches to disseminating EBTs for children with mental health needs. 2. Participants will be able to describe the benefits, including child-level outcomes, of disseminating EBTs across a statewide system. 3. Participants will be able to describe implementation, policy, and resource challenges of EBT dissemination at the state and provider levels along with strategies to address these concerns. Moderator: Valerie Gold, Senior Advisor, New England Mental Health Technology Transfer Center (NE- MHTTC) Presenter: Jason Lang, PhD, Vice President of Mental Health Initiatives, Child Health and Development Institute of Connecticut

  ABOUT THE SERIES: This webinar series is focused on the role of the school leader in creating and maintaining a positive climate and culture virtually during the global pandemic and in the building upon the return to school. We know these are challenging times and want to provide information you can use immediately and to use for the plans to return to school as part of your MTSS framework. The series is broken into three 90-minute sessions on three separate dates. *Please note that the last session is a chance to get your questions addressed LIVE!   WHEN: Part 1: (April 30th) Here and Now: Understanding Trauma and Steps to Take Today with your Staff  Part 2: (May 14th) Re-entry: Planning Ahead for Coming Back Together > REGISTER HERE Part 3: (June 4th) Discussion - LIVE Q & A with series presenters and guest school leaders > REGISTER HERE *All webinars are from 1 - 2:30PM (PST)   *Clock hours will be provided.   **Access all presentation materials and recordings after the event here.**   SERIES OBJECTIVES: Describe how trauma/extreme stress impacts our ability to learn, and executive functioning skills Identify guiding ideas, and concrete steps, school leaders can take to support teachers, families, and themselves emotionally Identify how the core features of MTSS, including systems, practices, and data, can be shaped to address build protective factors for the school community now. Identify how the core features of MTSS, including systems, practices, and data, can be shaped to address build protective factors for the school community once your students are back in the building. This series is brought to you by Sound Supports, LLC, Northwest PBIS Network, and the Association of Washington School Principals in partnership with the school mental health supplement to the Northwest Mental Health Technology Transfer Center.   The School Leader Series is part of The Well-Being Series - Connections During COVID-19: Mental Wellness Webinars for Families and Educators. Click here to learn more about our series of webinars for kids, parents, and educators, focusing on mental wellness and suicide prevention.  About the Presenters: Dr. Lori Lynass is the Owner and Executive Director of Sound Supports whose mission is to support every student and every school through the use of a Multi-tiered framework. Dr. Lynass has over 22 years of experience in the field of education and has worked directly with over 100 schools, 100 districts and 4 state departments of education on their implementation of academic and behavioral systems. Previously Dr. Lynass has been the Executive Director of Northwest PBIS and a research scientist at the University of Washington. Dr. Lynass has also overseen and coordinated grants related to academic and behavioral Multi-tiered Systems of Supports in schools and actively disseminates through presentations and publications. Dr. Lynass has also taught courses as an adjunct professor for the University of Washington, Seattle University and Seattle Pacific University.   Cher Anderton, MSW, LSWAIC is a mental health therapist, MTSS-B/PBIS coach, Trauma Informed Practices consultant, Positive Discipline parent educator and former elementary school counselor. In short, Cher loves working with adults to grow their skill set and improve resilience and sustainability in heart-center fields of work and life. Cher has a BA in History and a Masters in Social Work from Boston University.         Dr. Jessica Swain-Bradway is the Executive Director for Northwest PBIS Network. Her work in school-wide positive behavioral interventions and supports (SW-PBIS) and multi-tiered systems of support (MTSS) focuses on equipping teachers with high leverage strategies for instruction, relationship-building, and designing effective learning environments. She has extensive experience supporting districts and states to build capacity for PBIS implementation and working across agencies to maximize resources for developing the organizational health of the school environment. Dr. Swain-Bradway also has expertise aligning restorative practices, mental health practices, including trauma informed care, and academic RtI into the SWPBIS framework.     Kurt Hatch M.Ed. A former teacher, instructional coach and award-winning principal, Kurt Hatch has served as a leader in a variety of systems including Puyallup, Kent, University Place, North Thurston and Shanghai, China.  Currently based out of Olympia, Kurt serves as Associate Director at the Association of Washington School Principals.  His work includes policy analysis, advocacy, leading the Mastering Principal Leadership Network and facilitating professional learning on topics such as: Systems Improvement; Distributed Leadership; and Equity, Bias and Race. Kurt also mentors early-career principals and trains school leaders on the implementation of a school-wide student support system that has helped recapture thousands of hours of instructional time, increase teacher efficacy and eliminate the use of suspensions.   Want more information and school mental health resources? Visit the Northwest MHTTC's School Mental Health page and sign up for our monthly newsletter for regular updates about events, trainings, and resources available to the Northwest region.  

The Northeast and Caribbean MHTTC wants to support you and your work during this unprecedented public health crisis. And we know you want to support each other! Many of you have created unique strategies for meeting the needs of your service participants, but you may still also be grappling with questions or looking for better ways of doing things. To help facilitate support and the sharing of resources and ideas, we will be facilitating Mutual Support Calls for Thriving at Work During COVID-19. These calls will be facilitated by knowledgeable leaders in the field, but we also want to benefit from your experience and expertise. Participants will have the opportunity to submit questions or comments in advance, but we welcome all to join and share with each other or just listen and benefit from the community. What & Who: One-hour virtual learning discussions for Mental Health Service Providers who want to share experiences, exchange resources, and ask and answer questions of and for each other. When: You are welcome to join 1, 2, or all 3. Mental Health Providers: Every other Thursday at 12 noon ET, 4/30, 5/14, and 5/28 Before joining each call, we invite you to submit a question or comment that you would like to see discussed during the call. We look forward to connecting with you!

  Click here to tune into the DBT STEPS-A YouTube Channel every Tuesday and Thursday morning at 10am for their live lessons. Registration is not required. DBT STEPS-A Online Lesson 17: Emotional Regulation - Opposite Action  Student Life Skills to Survive & Thrive During COVID-19 & Beyond About: Join Doctors Jim & Lizz Mazza & family in their living room as they teach kids the basics of emotional regulation and specific skills such as mindfulness, distress tolerance and interpersonal effectiveness—essential skills at any time, but even more critical during COVID-19. Our kids -- all of us -- are upended emotionally right now. Tune in with your kids to help you reduce conflict and to keep this pandemic in perspective.    Tune in to YouTube live for the Tuesday and Thursday morning sessions here. It is not necessary to watch these lessons in order. You can join in the series at anytime and catch up with the recorded videos! Audience: Parents, students, educators, and more!   >> Access recordings for all 16 live lessons after the event here. << The Northwest Mental Health Technology Transfer Center is partnering with Forefront Suicide Prevention Center & DBT in Schools to bring you a 16-lesson online curriculum for DBT STEPS-A and 2 Q&A sessions with the trainers.   This series is part of The Well-Being Series - Connections During COVID-19: Mental Wellness Webinars for Families and Educators. Click here to learn more about our series of webinars for kids, parents, and educators, focusing on mental wellness and suicide prevention. About the Presenters: Dr. James J. Mazza is the co-author of the DBT STEPS-A social emotional learning curriculum for middle and high school students. He received his masters and Ph.D. in school psychology from the University of Wisconsin – Madison. He is a professor at the University of Washington – Seattle where he has been for over 20 years teaching and conducting research in the field of adolescent mental health.       Dr. Elizabeth Dexter-Mazza is a certified DBT therapist and co-author of the DBT STEPS-A social emotional learning curriculum for middle and high school students. She received her doctoral degree from the School of Professional Psychology at Pacific University in 2004, and completed her predoctoral internship at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine/Montefiore Medical Center’s Adolescent Depression and Suicide Program. Dr. Dexter-Mazza completed her postdoctoral fellowship under the direction of Dr. Marsha Linehan at the University of Washington.   Want more information and school mental health resources? Visit the Northwest MHTTC's School Mental Health page and sign up for our monthly newsletter for regular updates about events, trainings, and resources available to the Northwest region.  

This webinar is a closed event for Rutgers University Faculty, Staff and Students Only. A similar webinar is being provided on May 12 and is open to the public | More Info   The recent events surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the Rutgers University-SHP community in unanticipated ways. This webinar will provide Rutgers SHP faculty, staff, and students with a brief overview of how the body reacts to unmitigated stress and trauma related to Covid19. In this webinar, we will introduce two strategies proven to reduce anxiety, distress, and hyperarousal. This session is facilitated by Amy Banko, Giovanna Giacobbe, Brittany Stone - faculty members of the SHP Department of Psychiatric Rehabilitation and Counseling Professions. 

7:00-8:15pm ET / 4:00-5:15pm PT / 1:00-2:15pm HT (view in your time zone) This event has ended. Click here to view the event recording.   No crisis response is perfect. Crises, including the COVID-19 pandemic we are in, will reveal gaps in crisis preparedness. While it can be hard to reflect on our preparedness while we are focused on responding to the crisis at hand, this session will create space to learn and adapt. During this webinar, Dr. Stephen Brock will guide us through key school crisis preparedness actions. He will provide an overview of the third edition of PREPaRE, a curriculum that contains current research and strategies for integrated school safety and crisis prevention, planning, response, and recovery efforts. He will also discuss how to adjust school crisis response plans to accommodate the reality of a global pandemic. Yesmina Luchsinger will share her crisis planning and response lessons learned as a state leader, including the development and dissemination process of the Pandemic Preparedness Guide the state released in March 2020.

Sponsored by the New England Mental Health Technology Transfer Center, this series features online meetings focused on bringing together leaders, clinicians, administrators, and constituents who are interested in working together to increase feasibility and scalability of specialized early psychosis and clinical high risk for psychosis (CHR-P) treatment across the New England region and other areas in the U.S. Guest presenters will share their experience with finding ways to pay for high quality prevention services for youth and families affected by early psychosis and/or signs of clinical high risk. This will include discussions about negotiating bundled payment structures with third-party payers, providing telemedicine, and finding creative solutions to maximize existing resources in order to provide stepped care that matches evidence-based services to individual needs and preferences. The format of each discussion in this series includes a 30-minute presentation by an invited expert followed by 30 minutes of questions and discussion by participants. Sessions will have a limit of 50 participants in order to maximize opportunities for meaningful discussion. Participants will be encouraged to network and develop workgroups to advance initiatives that are discussed. The lineup of guest speakers for this series includes:   2/26/2020 - 2-3PM EST | Financing First Episode Psychosis Programs: Developing Medicaid and Commercial Insurance Support in Maine - Douglas R. Robbins, M.D., psychiatrist for Maine Behavioral Healthcare 3/11/2020 - 2-3PM EST | Telehealth 101 & A Provider’s Perspective on TeleMental Health - Reid Plimpton , MPH, Project Manager for Northeast Telehealth Resource Center, Medical Care Development & Terry Rabinowitz, MD, DDS, NETRC Principle Investigator Medical Director, Telemedicine, University of Vermont Medical Center  4/29/2020 - 2-3PM EST | Melissa Rowan, MSW, MBA, Executive Vice President for Policy Implementation, Meadows Mental Health Policy Institute

Times: 5pm ET / 2pm PT / 11am HT (view your time zone)   More than one hundred participants have joined each of our first two Wellness Wednesdays. In response to high demand for more, we’ve added sessions through the month of April. Educators and school mental health leadership are resilient, creative, and tenacious, but they need support to be able to provide support. In this period of stress and uncertainty, now is the time to gather and resource one another. In collaboration with the Meaning Makers Collective, we’re pleased to offer three School Mental Health Wellness Wednesdays. Each Wellness Wednesday is a 60-minute virtual session for the school mental health workforce to connect, reflect, and support each other. Please note that the Wellness Wednesdays are not a sequence; you can join us for one, some, or all.   Audience: For state and local education agency education and behavioral health leaders, community-based organization staff, teachers, school site leaders, district administration, principals, school-based mental health staff, student support service providers, and anyone else who would like to join.   Upcoming Dates April 15 at 5 pm ET / 2 pm PT / 11 am HT (view your time zone) | Register Here April 22 at 5 pm ET / 2 pm PT / 11 am HT (view your time zone) | Register Here April 29 at 5 pm ET / 2 pm PT/ 11 am HT (view your time zone) | Register Here   Meet the Instructors Judee Fernandez is an educator, facilitator, and coach. Judee began her work in schools as a high school Spanish teacher and later co-founded First Generation Institute, a firm focused on professional development for teachers in the area of cultural relevance and equity for students of color in public schools. Judee has worked as a Wellness Director and Assistant Principal at New Village Girls Academy and a high school Principal with San Francisco USD. Judee holds a BA in Spanish and Education from Loyola Marymount University, an MA in Latin American Studies from Cal State Los Angeles, and a School Leadership Certificate from the University of Southern California. Michelle Kurta is an educator, coach, and facilitator. For over 15 years, Michelle has engaged in educational equity and justice work as a student, organizer, and teacher. Michelle earned a masters degree in Depth Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute and an M.Ed in Urban Education and Single-subject Teaching Credential from UCLA. Michelle taught English Language Development, Language Arts, and Psychology at the School for Visual Arts and Humanities in the LAUSD. Prior to forming Meaning Makers Collective, Michelle most served as a resilience and trauma-informed practices coach for a national initiative to support school employee wellness in CA and CO.

Week 2   Training #3:  Telehealth Billing & Reimbursement Review Medicare billing and reimbursement for telehealth during the Covid19 public health emergency Review private payer billing and reimbursement for telehealth during the Covid19 public health emergency This event conveys information applicable to rural settings.   Presenters:  Gail Kreiger, Section Manager of the Medicaid Compliance Review and Analytics Section of the Medicaid Program Operations and Integrity Division in the Medicaid program of the Washington Health Care Authority Cathy Britain, Executive Director of the Telehealth Alliance of Oregon  

This virtual learning session is open only to the members of our regional learning community. Learning Community Members: Please come prepared to share an opportunity/challenge and/or innovation in any of the following areas: Workforce recruitment – Strategies for outreaching to and recruiting prospective mental health and/or education personnel during physical distancing and closures Workforce development – Training and professional development for mental health and/or education personnel to use distance learning or health technologies Workforce retention – Strategies for retaining staff who have additional duties as caregivers at home, health concerns, and/or when telemental health services are not reimbursable  

Crisis Response Planning for Suicidal Patients: An Introduction Part Four of Six in the Webinar Series: Suicide Prevention Across the Educational Continuum A widely-used strategy for managing acute suicide risk is the contract for safety, also known as the no-suicide contract. Despite its widespread use across mental health and medical settings, accumulating consensus is that this approach may be ineffective. Alternative strategies such as crisis response planning or the related safety planning intervention have therefore been proposed. Written on an index card, the crisis response plan outlines simple steps for a suicidal individual to follow when in a crisis. Results of a recently completed randomized clinical trial show that crisis response planning reduces suicide attempts by 75% as compared to the contract for safety, thereby supporting the method’s efficacy. The purpose of this presentation is to provide an overview of crisis response planning, and to differentiate the method from other, less effective means for managing suicide risk. Presenter     Criag J. Bryan, PsyD, ABPP Suicide Prevention Across the Educational Continuum: Webinar Series     Part Five: Suicide Interventions and Response for Youth Experiencing Series Emotional Disturbance (SED) May 5, 2020 at 11:00 am MT Part Six: Suicide Prevention and Interventions for Transition Age Youth on College Campuses May 13, 2020 at 11:00 am MT  

This one and half-hour online session will provide information on how to assist teachers and school administrators in understanding the stress and trauma reactivation experienced by ethnic minorities and Latinos families, children, and youth as a result of natural disasters.     Who should attend? This is a basic level workshop designed for social workers, school mental health personnel, teachers and school administrators.   About the presenter:  J Rocky Romero is a former Assistant Professor for New Mexico Highlands University School of Social Work in Albuquerque, NM, and is also a graduate of NMHU and Northern New Mexico Community College (NNMCC). He served as the co-chair for Governor Richardson appointed NM Higher Education Departments Cultural Competency Task-Force.  Dr. Romero has also served as an Executive Council member for the NM-Consortium for Behavioral Health Training and Research (NM-CBHTR). In addition, Dr. Romero completed his doctoral studies at the University of New Mexico in Language, Literacy, and Socio-cultural studies and graduated in 2016. He is focused on culturally appropriate treatment while focusing on health disparities and access for health and mental health care in New Mexico for people of color.   Please read the following before registering: The National Hispanic and Latino Mental Health Technology Transfer Center use GoToWebinar as our online event system. Audio for the event is accessible via the internet. To receive audio, attendees must join the event by using computers equipped with speakers or dial in via telephone. After registration, a confirmation email will be generated with instructions for joining the event. To avoid problems with log-in, please use the confirmation email to join the event.

  The school mental health supplement to the Northwest MHTTC is excited to co-sponsor the UW SMART Center's 2020 Virtual Speaker Series. Originally a series of in-person events, we have moved these presentations to a virtual format due to COVID-19.   Join us on Wednesday, April 29th from 8:30 - 9:45am for a presentation by Daniel Losen, JD, MEd, who will present: "Efforts to Stop the School to Prison Pipeline: Seeking remedies to racial discipline disparities among students with disabilities".   *** Please RSVP as soon as possible due to limited capacity*** About the Presenter: Daniel J. Losen is director of the Center for Civil Rights Remedies, an initiative at the Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles (CRP).  He has worked at the Civil Rights Project since 1999, when it was affiliated with Harvard Law School, where he was a lecturer on law. Losen's work concerns the impact of law and policy on children of color and language minority students including: the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act with a focus on promoting diversity, access to effective teachers, and improving graduation rate accountability; the IDEA and racial inequity in special education; school discipline and revealing and redressing the “School-to- Prison Pipeline;” and protecting the rights of English learners to equal educational opportunity. On these and related topics he conducts law and policy research; publishes books, reports, and articles and works closely with federal and state legislators to inform legislative initiatives. Both for The Civil Rights Project, and independently, he provides guidance to policymakers, educators and advocates at the state and district level. Before becoming a lawyer, Mr. Losen taught in public schools for ten years, including work as a school founder of an alternative public school. *Please feel free to distribute this event information to any interested individuals, as this speaker series will be open to all at no cost. Please contact [email protected] if you have any questions or would like more information about this event.  Want more information and school mental health resources? Visit the Northwest MHTTC's School Mental Health page and sign up for our monthly newsletter for regular updates about events, trainings, and resources available to the Northwest region.  

Currently, gender has moved from the traditional male-female binary.  Therefore, it is important to understand all aspects of gender, including gender expression and gender identity.   This webinar will discuss strengths and challenges related to gender diversity in behavioral health as a way to help overcome the disparities and improve effective services.   Trainer:   Dr. Anthony Zazzarino, PhD, LPC, ACS, CPRP is a full-time faculty member at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey in the Department of Psychiatric Rehabilitation and Counseling Professions. He currently provides instruction for professional education courses for New Jersey’s Supported Housing agencies implementing Community Support Services (CSS), the Master’s program in Rehabilitation Counseling, and the Doctoral program in Counselor Education and Supervision. Dr. Zazzarino is a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC), Approved Clinical Supervisor (ACS), and Certified Psychiatric Rehabilitation Practitioner (CPRP). He completed his PhD in Counselor Education and Supervision at Walden University where he focused on improving the lives of sexual minorities with serious mental illnesses and enhancing individual’s knowledge of multicultural competence. Dr. Zazzarino is actively presenting at local, state, and national conferences related to psychiatric rehabilitation methods, counseling services, and supervision practices. In addition to his work at Rutgers, Dr. Zazzarino is a suicide prevention trainer for the Society for the Prevention of Teen Suicide, facilitates group therapy for adolescents and adults at an intensive outpatient program, provides outpatient counseling services at his private practice, and provides clinical supervision for counselors who need supervised clinical hours in New Jersey.  

 “Strategies of Support for Mental Health Providers” - Empowering one another during times of crisis This is the fourth session of a weekly open forum to listen and share suggestions and resources. Special attention will be paid to resiliency, strength, overcoming challenges of social distancing, and supporting mental health professionals in their efforts to adapt their delivery of services. Discussion will be facilitated by Sean A. Bear, BA, Meskwaki; Matt Ignacio, PhC, MSSW, Tohono O’odham; and Anne Helene Skinstad, PhD. Times for next session: 11:00am – 12:00pm AKDT 12:00pm – 1:00pm PDT 1:00pm – 2:00pm MDT 2:00pm – 3:00pm CDT 3:00pm – 4:00pm EDT

The School Mental Health Learning Community is a 6-month program focused on improving state and district capacity to implement effective multi-tiered systems of school mental health support. Based on input from our region's state leaders, this intensive learning opportunity is uniquely focused on the region's needs and interests. This program is closed to selected teams from schools and districts across HHS Region 7.

Telehealth Learning and Consultation (TLC) Tuesdays is a weekly online series for providers who are unfamiliar with telehealth. Our Technology Transfer Center (TTC) Network specialists will devote the first 20 minutes of each hour-long session to a specific topic, then address questions submitted by TTC Tuesday registrants. Recordings of the 20-minute presentations as well as additional resources will be posted on this page as they become available. You must register separately for each TLC Tuesdays session. While filling out the registration form, you will prompted to submit any questions you might have. Register by clicking one of the dates below. Certificates of completion are available.

  Click here to tune into the DBT STEPS-A YouTube Channel every Tuesday and Thursday morning at 10am for their live lessons. Registration is not required. DBT STEPS-A Online Lesson 17: Emotional Regulation - Check the Facts  Student Life Skills to Survive & Thrive During COVID-19 & Beyond About: Join Doctors Jim & Lizz Mazza & family in their living room as they teach kids the basics of emotional regulation and specific skills such as mindfulness, distress tolerance and interpersonal effectiveness—essential skills at any time, but even more critical during COVID-19. Our kids -- all of us -- are upended emotionally right now. Tune in with your kids to help you reduce conflict and to keep this pandemic in perspective.    Tune in to YouTube live for the Tuesday and Thursday morning sessions here. It is not necessary to watch these lessons in order. You can join in the series at anytime and catch up with the recorded videos! Audience: Parents, students, educators, and more!   >> Access recordings for all 16 live lessons after the event here. << The Northwest Mental Health Technology Transfer Center is partnering with Forefront Suicide Prevention Center & DBT in Schools to bring you a 16-lesson online curriculum for DBT STEPS-A and 2 Q&A sessions with the trainers.   This series is part of The Well-Being Series - Connections During COVID-19: Mental Wellness Webinars for Families and Educators. Click here to learn more about our series of webinars for kids, parents, and educators, focusing on mental wellness and suicide prevention. About the Presenters: Dr. James J. Mazza is the co-author of the DBT STEPS-A social emotional learning curriculum for middle and high school students. He received his masters and Ph.D. in school psychology from the University of Wisconsin – Madison. He is a professor at the University of Washington – Seattle where he has been for over 20 years teaching and conducting research in the field of adolescent mental health.       Dr. Elizabeth Dexter-Mazza is a certified DBT therapist and co-author of the DBT STEPS-A social emotional learning curriculum for middle and high school students. She received her doctoral degree from the School of Professional Psychology at Pacific University in 2004, and completed her predoctoral internship at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine/Montefiore Medical Center’s Adolescent Depression and Suicide Program. Dr. Dexter-Mazza completed her postdoctoral fellowship under the direction of Dr. Marsha Linehan at the University of Washington.   Want more information and school mental health resources? Visit the Northwest MHTTC's School Mental Health page and sign up for our monthly newsletter for regular updates about events, trainings, and resources available to the Northwest region.  

Telehealth Troubleshooting: Telehealth Learning and Consultation (TLC) Tuesdays This hour-long online series will support behavioral health providers who are new to using telehealth. During each hour-long session, our Technology Transfer Center (TTC) Network specialists will spend the first 20 minutes addressing a specific topic, then answer questions submitted by TLC Tuesday registrants. Recordings of the 20-minute presentations as well as additional resources will be posted on the web as they become available.  

Time: 3:00pm - 4:30pm PT This event has ended. Click here to view the event recording.   This webinar provides a brief overview of best practices and strategies for telesupervision: clinical supervision provided via video or phone. Participants will learn how to shift the frame of supervision and lay a clear foundation for expectations. Presenters will address best practices for communicating through tele-modalities to ensure that supervisors can recreate nuanced communication practices akin to in-person approaches. This session will explore ethical and legal considerations across a range of topics, from informed consent to managing crises that arise in supervisees’ clinical encounters. The context of the current global pandemic is woven in throughout the training.   Learning Objectives Describe best practices in telemental health services Articulate legal and ethical considerations applying to telehealth services Discuss assessment and intervention strategies from telehealth modalities   Intended Audience: Clinical supervisors and treatment providers of mental health services

The goal of this training is to increase the awareness and abilities of school mental health providers in the use of cultural elements by promoting the use of culturally appropriate formulations when treating Hispanics and Latino youth presenting with psychological, mental, and substance use disorders. Current research findings inform this training on the impact of cultural factors on the assessment and treatment of mental health disorders and the therapeutic relationship. The objectives of the training are to: Distinguish between cultural sensitivity and cultural competence in school-based mental health treatment. Discuss major factors that affect youth mental health and academic performance. **This is a private training not opened to our community**      

Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) is a multidisciplinary, team-based model that provides intensive community-based and outreach-oriented services to people who experience the most severe and persistent mental illness. The vast majority also have a co-occurring substance use disorder and many experience comorbid medical illnesses as well as homelessness. This is a vulnerable population and their providers – ACT teams – are at elevated risk themselves during the COVID-19 pandemic. Weekly Virtual Meetings The Northwest MHTTC is partnering with the Institute for Best Practices at the University of North Carolina to host and facilitate regular meetings for ACT teams and ACT stakeholders. These meetings will be held weekly on Mondays at 12:00-1:30 pm Pacific/3:00-4:30 pm Eastern. Goals of the meetings are to: connect with one other share strategies and resources for adapting team practices and communications    facilitate connection to the most up-to-date resources during the COVID-19 outbreak.   Virtual Discussion Forum In addition to the weekly meet-up, we have also created a Virtual Discussion Forum to help organize information, resources, and strategies used across teams. You can participate in the forum as a guest, or sign up as a member. Within the Discussion Forum are specific board topics: Support for ACT Service Recipients; Support for ACT Team Staff; Info and Updates: Federal Sources; Info and Updates: State and Local Sources; ACT Fidelity and COVID-19 Pandemic; and Words of Encouragement. Click on a board of interest to read existing threads, react to threads, or post new threads.   For more information or questions, contact: Maria Monroe-Devita, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, University of Washington School of Medicine; Co-Director of the Northwest MHTTC; and Director, Washington State Center of Excellence in First Episode Psychosis. Lorna Moser, PhD, Director of the UNC ACT Technical Assistance Center in the UNC Department of Psychiatry’s Center for Excellence in Community Mental Health; and Coordinator of the North Carolina ACT Coalition.

The Northwest Mental Health Technology Transfer Center and the Northwest PBIS Network are collaborating to bring you a FREE, 4-part webinar series presented by WellEducator, LLC.  Learn more about our 4-part series and access presentation materials here. About the Webinar: Being an educator can come with some unique stressors. The effects of stress can lead to negative outcomes for both educators and students. In addition to the action that must happen at the organizational and systemic levels to create and sustain change, educators can boost their resilience through simple - though not always easy - activities and strategies. In this webinar, educators will learn how to: enhance their awareness through mindfulness practices, identify possibilities for enhanced wellbeing and create space to support change and boost resilience. Webinar Objectives: Learn three mindfulness practices. Identify infinite possibilities for wellness and potential barriers. Identify supports to get “unstuck” and create lasting change. Our Presenter: Dr. Renee Van Norman - Educator and Founder of WellEducator LLC Want more information and school mental health resources? Visit the Northwest MHTTC's School Mental Health page and sign up for our monthly newsletter for regular updates about events, trainings, and resources available to the Northwest region.  

Presenter: Dave Eckert, MDiv, CPRP, is the Director of Intersect, an initiative of Access Services that supports those at the intersection of faith and mental health.    This Central East MHTTC co-sponsored training will equip participants with strategies for maintaining mental wellness for themselves and others during times of crisis. Concepts from within both the mental health field and faith community will be synthesized in order to provide an integrated approach to wellness.   Learning Objectives: Develop an understanding of how crisis impacts mental wellness Learn key concepts for addressing their own wellness during crisis Use wellness concepts in caring for other people in crisis Gain an integrated approach to wellness that pulls from both clinical and faith-based resources