The 2017 58th Annual National Dialogues on Behavioral Health (NDBH) annual conference will be held in New Orleans at the Renaissance Arts Hotel from Oct. 22 -25. The conference, "Framing the Future of Behavioral Health Services: What's the Next Step?," will be preceded by a pre-conference program, to be held Oct. 22.
Conference partners are the National Association of County Behavioral Health and Developmental Disability Directors (NACBHDD), the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors (NASMHPD), and the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE) Mental Health Program.
This year's conference confronts the turmoil of the changing national healthcare environment, evaluates its impact on behavioral healthcare and broader healthcare policy, and builds on successes achieved as changes occur in funding, clinical models, workforce, and the emergence of new technologies.
The conference topics are designed for psychiatrists, social workers, nurses, psychologists, counselors, addiction counselors, case managers, administrators, policy makers, behavioral healthcare providers, state/county behavioral healthcare administrators, members of the judiciary, justice system administrators, law enforcement/justice system stakeholders departments, emergency/disaster response professionals, educators, school based counselors, health plan administrators, health policy makers, and academicians. An application for CEU’s for social workers is pending approval from the National Association of Social Workers.
The pre-conference program, offered on Oct. 22, from 8:45 a.m. to 4 p.m., examines the question, "Is a best practice model possible for behavioral health in a new healthcare environment?" Speakers include Henry Harbin, MD, Healthcare Consultant and former CEO of Magellan Health Services; Anita Everett MD, Chief Medical Officer, SAMHSA; Lisa Dixon MD, MPH, Director of Behavioral Health Services and Policy Research, Department of Psychiatry, Columbia University; David Covington LPC, MBA, CEO and President of RI International; Leslie Schwalbe, Vice President, State and Local Programs, Optum; and pre-conference conveners Vijay Ganju, PhD, NDBH and Brian Hepburn, MD, NASMHPD.
The fee for the general conference, Monday through Wednesday, is $295. The pre-conference fee is $150. Registration can be secured, program and speaker details accessed, and information on hotel registration found at http://nationaldialoguesbh.org/. Questions may be directed to Brittany Copithorn at bcopithorn@wiche.edu. Early registration is encouraged.