The Children's Behavioral Health Knowledge Center hosted its second annual Symposium and Gailanne Reeh Lecture on May 6th at the Worcester Recovery Center and Hospital. Over 150 people attended the day-long event hosted in celebration of Children's Mental Health Awareness Week. 

The morning's keynote speaker, Allison Metz, Ph.D, Co-Director of the National Implementation Research Network, discussed how the production of socially significant outcomes for youth requires not only the selection of interventions known to be effective but deliberate attention to effective implementation strategies and an enabling context. Click here to download her presentation. 

Following Dr. Metz, panelists discussed the implementation of the Children's Behavioral Health Initiative (CBHI), giving attendees the opportunity to hear how key concepts described by Dr. Metz, played out with the implementation of the CBHI.

After lunch, attendees heard from Alicia Anzaldi, a young adult peer mentor at The Home for Little Wanderers Community Service Agency. Anzaldi told her personal recovery story describing her lived experience and journey to mental wellness and how it has informed her work as a peer mentor. Ms. Anzaldi, also introduced this year’s Gailanne Reeh lecturer, Secretary of Health and Human Services, Marylou Sudders. Sudders speech, titled Imagining the Future of Children's Behavioral Health, described a future behavioral health system that includes better integration of mental health, substance use, and physical health care services. She also described a future where more dollars are spent on prevention and early identification and treatment of mental illness and substance use in areas such as  early childhood mental health, early psychosis identification, screening and treatment for moms with post-partum depression, supporting parents who have a mental illness during pregnancy and substance use prevention programs. Click here to download her presentation.