Mental Health Institute for Washington State Providers

Fall 2022

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About the Institute

The purpose of the Mental Health Institute is to train and expand the knowledge base of the behavioral health workforce to increase equity and inclusion for underserved populations in Washington state.

Specifically, the Institute is designed to provide training and support to Washington State health care providers who work with: 

  • Children, youth and young adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities and behavioral health needs
  • Underserved (e.g., racial/ethnic/gender/sexual minority) populations
  • Individuals managing co-occurring disorders

Each training track will provide multiple sessions of live teleconference workshops focused on a specific topic area related to the track. The sessions will use interactive teaching strategies like breakout rooms, role plays, audiovisuals, etc., to foster an environment of a collaborative learning community. Lived experiences from impacted communities will be highlighted throughout the workshops as a pedagogical strategy. Considerations around diversity, equity, and inclusion and social determinants of health will be addressed in each track.

You are not required to attend every session within a particular track, and you may register for sessions within any track.   

SPACE IS LIMITED: these will be interactive sessions on camera, and some will include breakout sessions.

 

Eligibility

This event is specifically for Washington State attendees who are part of the behavioral health workforce.

Organizers

SPIRIT Lab (Supporting Psychosis Innovation through Research, Implementation, & Training), University of Washington Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences; Washington State Health Care Authority; Northwest Mental Health Technology Transfer Center; and the WA INCLUDE Collaborative, Center on Human Development & Disability.

If you have any questions please contact us at uwspiritlab@uw.edu 

Tracks and Learning Objectives

Co-Occuring Disorders

Sessions offered October 3rd – December 5th, 2022.  Learn More ➞

Close to half of adult individuals diagnosed with a severe mental illness will also have a substance abuse disorder. Drugs of abuse affect a disproportionate amount of people receiving community mental health services, yet many services for mental health and substance use problems remain separated.  Best practice guidelines indicate that these services are integrated for best outcomes.

  • Increase knowledge of the connection between mental health and substance use, and their collective impact from a biopsychosocial perspective.
  • Learn how to formulate presenting concerns from an integrative perspective and choose from a menu of treatment strategies as appropriate.
  • Understand how to apply principles of social justice by learning about how substance use is related to structural factors and hearing from persons with lived experience of responding to co-occurring disorders.

 

Track Lead: Jeffery Roskelley, LICSW

Jeff Roskelley

Learn More About Jeff's Work

Jeffery Roskelley is a licensed independent clinical social worker training and consulting for the SPIRIT (which stands for Supporting Psychosis Innovation through Research, Implementation and Training) Lab at the University of Washington. Jeff graduated from the University of Utah with a Master of Social Work degree in 2008, and has worked in several different settings including hospice, as a co-occurring assessment specialist at the University of Utah and as a co-occurring specialist for the Lake Whatcom PACT team in Bellingham WA, where he currently resides. Jeff’s area of specialty is in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Psychosis and for Substance Use Disorder. Since 2013 he has been training Assertive Community Treatment Teams in WA state in co-occurring disorders treatment and cognitive behavioral techniques for severe mental illness. Jeff was trained and received consultation in CBTp with the original Washington state cohort in 2015, trained by Jennifer Gottlieb, PhD from the Harvard Medical School and provided direct clinical CBTp counseling to clients at Sunrise Mental Health from 2015 to 2018, receiving supervision from Sarah Kopelovich, PhD, from the University of Washington. Currently, Jeff provides individual private counseling in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, addressing a wide range of clinical issues, ranging from anxiety and depression to obsessive compulsive disorder and psychosis. In addition, Jeff is a clinical supervisor for social workers. Finally, last but not least, Jeff is an ardent dog lover and a dabbler in chi gong.
Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (IDD)

 

Sessions offered October 7th –  February 10th, 2023.  Learn More ➞

Individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) show higher rates of mental health concerns than the general population. However, they have been historically underserved by behavioral health agencies. One reason they are commonly turned away from mental health services is because clinicians express a lack of knowledge and confidence to work with this population.   Training activities offered in this track will focus on adaptation of commonly used therapeutic strategies to be utilized with clients with IDD and co-occurring mental health concerns.  Training will focus on increasing skills and knowledge that providers can immediately use with their clients and share with their colleagues to better serve this population.

  • Increase knowledge and skills in treating co-occurring mental health conditions among individuals with IDD, to increase clinicians’ confidence in serving this population.
  • Apply adaptations of commonly used therapeutic approaches including Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) for individuals with IDD to aid them in processing information and behavioral strategies.
  • Include voices of those with lived experience to improve care for historically underserved communities, highlighting the value and importance of serving this population.

Track Lead: Jim Mancini, CCC-SLP

Jim Mancini

Learn More About Jim's Work

Jim Mancini, co-founder of Welcome Inclusion (WIN), is a speech-language pathologist and directs education, training and outreach programs at the Seattle Children’s Autism Center. He has worked in the field of autism spectrum disorders for over 15 years including four years in Baltimore, MD, at the Kennedy Krieger Institute as a research speech language pathologist and periods of time at the UW Autism Center and Seattle Children’s Neurodevelopmental Clinic. Jim teaches several classes including classes for parents recently receiving the diagnosis of autism and curates the monthly Autism 200 lecture series at Seattle Children’s. Jim has a special interest in social justice activities and is engaged in increasing health equity for culturally and linguistically diverse families in King County.
Social Justice & Inclusion

 

Sessions offered October 20th – December 7th, 2022.   Learn More ➞

People from racial and ethnic minorities have less access to mental health care, and the available care is frequently of poorer quality than that available to the white population. This track is focused on educational activities aimed at addressing these disparities and inequities in access to mental health care.  Training activities will create a space to generate and learn ideas and practices that can support participants in providing culturally and structurally responsive care, and move toward more collaborative, relationally oriented, and just therapeutic relationships.

  • Increase knowledge of how context, power relations, and structural factors contribute to the development of mental health concerns, community disruption, and distress.
  • Develop the ability to formulate collaborative interventions that contribute to resilience and agency, build on individual and community strengths, and support a movement away from pathologizing narratives about the people who consult us.
  • Provide culturally responsive interventions and ideas they can adapt to fit the needs of the people who consult them, therefore improving care for historically underserved communities.

 

Track Lead: Dr. Akansha Vaswani-Bye

Learn More About Akansha's Work

Akansha Vaswani Bye, PhD, is an Acting Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington School of Medicine. She received her doctorate in Counseling Psychology from the University of Massachusetts, Boston and completed an APA accredited internship at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center/Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center/Harvard Medical School. Her doctoral research focused on deprescribing and the importance of identifying rational and evidence-based prescribing practices grounded in informed consent and patient-centered care.

Akansha’s interests include the development and dissemination of family-centered and participatory models of care, culturally consonant and evidence-based practices, and non-pathologizing interventions. She is also interested in working on interventions that account for the impact of structural and social determinants of health on individuals diagnosed with SMI.

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