Larry Woolf National Leader in Youth Aware of Mental Health Program

Retired teacher and guidance counselor from Browning, Montana who has become one of the nation’s leaders in the Youth Aware of Mental Health program and a pioneer at bringing this research-proven program to Native American Communities.

Dr. Ken Duckworth MD – NAMI Chief Medical Officer

Dr. Ken Duckworth MD, NAMI’s Chief Medical Officer talks about the making of and success of NAMI’s New Book, “You Are Not Alone.”

Dr. Glenda Wren MD Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology Morehouse School of Medicine

Dr. Glenda Wren MD Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology Morehouse School of Medicine on Mental Health Equity and Navigating Change and Uncertainty

Mylene Widner and Winnie Lohof on the Montana Path Program

Mylene Widner and Winnie Lohof on the success and lessons implementing the Montana Path Program

Certified Behavioral Health Centers with Mary Windecker and Levi Anderson

Mary Windecker, the executive director of Behavioral Health Alliance of Montana and Levi Anderson, the CEO at Western Montana Mental Health Center talk about the lessons learned and successes with Certified Behavioral Health Centers.

Dr. Jennifer Preble On her PhD research about Montana Mental Health System

Dr. Jennifer Preble, DSW, LCSW – On her PhD research about Montana Mental Health System

Judge Steve Leifman on The Criminalization of Mental Illness

Judge Leifman shares his experience and successes with the Miami-Dade County Mental Health Project ending “THE CRIMINALIZATION OF MENTAL ILLNESS”.

Deepika Bodapati – Co-Founder of Athelas – Remote Healthcare Monitoring In Mental Health

Deepika Bodapati is the co-founder of Athelas, a company working with patients living with Treatment-Resistant Schizophrenia (TRS) to overcome the challenges of constant lab work when prescribed clozapine.

Dr. Mike Potoczniak – Veterans Mental Health and Substance Abuse: What We’re Getting Right and What We’re Getting Wrong

Dr. Mike Potoczniak is a licensed psychologist and is the Chief of Mental Health at the Loma Linda VA. He was previously the mental health director for the Santa Rosa community-based outpatient clinic in San Francisco VA.

PRESENTATION PDF

Erin Amato MD – Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation and Ketamine Treatments Jan 12, 2022

Erin Amato, MD is an interventional psychiatrist, educator, award-winning speaker, and mother of 6. She is passionate about utilizing cutting-edge treatments for depression, anxiety, and other mood and cognitive disorders that have not responded to traditional interventions. She was the first physician to bring Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) and ketamine treatment for depression to Montana and Wyoming and has focused her practice on innovative and integrative treatments to help patients find hope and healing.

Holly Wilcox PhD -Youth Suicide Prevention – Dec 8, 2021

Holly C. Wilcox, PhD is a Professor in the Department of Mental Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health with joint appointments in the Department of Health Policy and Management as well as the Johns Hopkins Schools of Medicine and Education. Much of her work involves population-based research on suicidal behaviors, the evaluation of impact of community-based universal prevention programs targeting suicidal behaviors, and data linkage strategies to inform suicide prevention.

PRESENTATION PDF

Dr Bob Sise MD – Evidence on the Psychiatric Impact of Cannabis Use – Nov 10, 2021

​​Throughout his work, Dr. Sise emphasizes meeting patients where they are at in their willingness to change. He co-founded Frontier Psychiatry to ensure all Montanans have access to quality addiction treatment services and crisis care. Dr. Sise started providing care to Montanans when he joined Billings Clinic and founded the organization’s first addiction treatment clinic. Before leaving Billings Clinic in 2021, he served as Medical Director of Montana’s first EmPATH Unit, led the consult-liaison psychiatry service and created a virtual urgent care service. He has lectured on substance use disorder screening, diagnosis and treatment at both state and regional conferences. Dr. Sise is board certified in general and addiction psychiatry.

PRESENTATION PDF

Mike Vosters – October 13, 2021

Mike Vosters is a nomadic entrepreneur, developer, and mental health advocate. He writes in Medium about those parts of his life and living with ADHD and Bipolar Type II.

Mike brings his experience and strength living with a Bipolar condition, to develop the Mental Health League  app, an innovative tool, to empower anyone along their mental health fitness journey.

The MHL application provides DAILY education, motivation, and live coaching with lots of fun sports references. It’s modeled after a sports league with three main features to Track your progress, Train new skills, and Assist your fellow teammates.

Jordan Brown – October 27th 2020

Jordan utilizes his combined experiences as a caregiver, social worker, and someone who has personally faced mental health challenges to create authentic mental health content that has been read by people around the world. Jordan writes The Mental Health Update newsletter. Over 30,000 people receive his mental health insights on Twitter and he has recently released the book, In Search of Happiness: Healing Through Mental Health Poetry.

Miriam Feldman – November 10th 2020

Miriam Feldman is an artist, writer, and mental health activist who splits her time between her Los Angeles workshop and her farm in rural Washington state. She has been married to her husband Craig O’Rourke, also a successful artist, for 34 years and they have four adult children. Their 33-year-old son, Nick, has schizophrenia. Miriam’s novel He Came In With It is the legacy of, and for, her son Nick.

Mental Health Apps: The Present and the Future – November 24th 2020

We are really excited about this panel discussion on mental health software applications – the present and future.

• Brett Coleman, Co-Found and President Waypoint Health Innovations. Waypoint offers the Thrive online cognitive behavioral therapy app which has be by people for anxiety and depression care throughout Montana.
• Stephen Hays, founder of What If Ventures, a venture fund investing primarily in early stage mental health and addiction recovery focused startups.
• Laura Stanley, PhD-  Montana State University researcher working on augmented reality mental health and addiction care.

2020 Montana Mental Healthcare System Sensing Session – December 8, 2020

At this Sensing Session, we asked mental health clinics and treatment centers to present for 12 minutes on the status of their operations, how they are getting through COVID-19, concerns/desires for the coming year. It was similar to the Sensing Session NAMI Montana conducted during the budget crisis a few years ago.

December 22nd 2020 –  Dr. J. John Mann MD

J. John Mann MD, is The Paul Janssen Professor of Translational Neuroscience (in Psychiatry and in Radiology) and a former Vice Chair for Research in the Department of Psychiatry at Columbia University. He is Director of Research and Director of Molecular Imaging and the Neuropathology Division at the New York State Psychiatric Institute.

His research employs functional brain imaging, neurochemistry and molecular genetics to probe the causes of depression and suicide. Dr. Mann is the Director of the NIMH Conte Center for the Neuroscience of Mental Disorders, and Past President of the International Academy of Suicide Research. Dr. Mann has published 458 papers and edited 10 books on the subjects of the biology and treatment of mood disorders, suicidal behavior and other psychiatric disorders. In private practice he specializes in the treatment of mood disorders.

Mark Lukach – Best Selling Author – January 12, 2021

Mark Lukach is a teacher and freelance writer. He is the author of the international bestselling memoir My Lovely Wife in The Psych Ward. His work has been published in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Pacific Standard, Wired, and other publications. He is currently the Ninth Grade Dean at The Athenian School, where he also teaches history. He lives with his wife, Giulia, and their son in the San Francisco Bay area.

Mark first wrote about his family’s story in a New York Times “Modern Love” column and again in a piece for Pacific Standard Magazine, which was the magazine’s most-read article in 2015. He has also shared their story at The Moth Main Stage, and at a TEDx conference.

Elizabeth Campoy – Individual Placement and Support (IPS) Employment – January 26, 2021

There is a strong connection between employment and recovery from mental illness!  IPS Supported Employment is an evidenced-based program that operates on 8 Core Principles and provides employment services to anyone with a mental illness that wants to work.  The Yellowstone Boys and Girls Ranch offers an IPS Program for youth and will share their success stories, annual outcomes and program goals.

Elizabeth Campoy is the IPS Supported Employment Program Supervisor at the Yellowstone Boys and Girls Ranch (YBGR) in Billings, Montana.  She has developed the program over the past 5 years with outstanding outcomes and strong support from her organization.  Her professional experience in mental health and teaching has afforded her the knowledge and skills to train extremely effective Employment Specialists.  The program’s positive outcomes have continually increased due to high-quality employer contacts and a growing network of local agencies, clinicians, schools, and other human service organizations.  Behind the outcomes are staff that are fully invested in the practices of IPS and deeply committed to the mission of YBGR, “Caring people, preparing youth for life.”

Dr. Ruth Weissman PhD – February 9th 2021

Dr. Weissman’s extensive research portfolio has contributed to an array of elements a part of eating disorders including risks, epidemiology, classification, treatment, cost-effectiveness, and health care policy. She received Lifetime Achievement Award from the Academy for Eating Disorders contributions to the field.

Ruth has been one of the lead researchers for the Youth Aware of Mental Health program study in Montana. She has a commitment to improving Montana’s mental illness treatment program through high-quality research.