Current Initiatives

Leadership Initiative
The mandate for transformation change was made clear by the President's New Freedom Commission on Mental Health and in the Institute of Medicine's report on mental and substance use conditions. The magnitude of the called-for changes creates an urgent and critical need for exceptional individuals with well developed leadership skills to reinvent and redesign behavioral health services and cross-systems collaborations. Exceptional leaders are required to build and sustain high performing organizations whose results reflect emerging values and the leaders' passion for excellence and positive outcomes. Effective leaders and their organizations are a means to an end: improved behavioral health status and recovery/resiliency for consumers across systems of care.

In 2005 ACMHA convened a group of nationally recognized behavioral health experts to compare how existing leadership development program goals, content, and methods fit with the College's leadership objectives for transformational change that include expanded behavioral health boundaries, system reinvention, and improved behavioral healthcare outcomes. Meeting participants affirmed the critical need for leadership development, the limited availability of appropriate training resources, and the need for ACMHA to serve as a national leader and catalyst for change. Key objectives for the ACMHA leadership initiative include the need to transform and enrich ACMHA by attracting new/emerging administrators with cross-systems collaborative skills, nurture/support members who are current leaders in the field, support succession plan development within behavioral health organizations, and create new leaders for the field.

Behavioral Health Leadership Excellence Network (LENS)
ACMHA has formed a partnership with the National Center for Healthcare Leadership (NCHL) in Chicago. NCHL has developed a Leadership Competency Model built on the IOM's Crossing the Quality Chasm's six core aims. The partnership allows ACMHA to build on an established and respected program that not only avoids duplication but also ensures that behavioral health leaders are trained in a model that has been adopted by physical healthcare systems and fosters cross-systems collaboration. Organizations who, as noted by their use of evidenced based practices and cross-systems collaborations, have a track record as early adopters and innovators will each select a team of 3 - 4 current and emerging leaders (staff, consumers, and/or family members) to form the first behavioral health Leadership Excellence Network (LENS) built on the NCHL leadership competency model. ACMHA and NCHL will jointly administer the two-year program.

Mentorship Program
The program matches mentors and learners working in the behavioral health field who have an interest in administration and leadership and specifically reaches out to individuals from ethnic and racial minorities. Through electronic communication and conference calls, partners establish relationships that allow seasoned leaders to support learners in developing a breadth and depth of knowledge to further promote the field of behavioral health.

Completed Initiatives

Annapolis Coalition
The initiative was planned to improve the relevance of current educational efforts to the health care environment and the effectiveness of behavioral health educational outcomes. A founding organization with the Academic Behavioral Health Consortium, ACMHA worked to promote reforms in training of the behavioral health workforce. In 2005 the Annapolis Coalition was incorporated as an independent, private, non-profit organization governed by a Board of Directors. The mission of the Annapolis Coalition on the Behavioral Health Workforce is to build a national consensus on the nature of the workforce crisis and to promote improvements in the quality and relevance of education and training by identifying and implementing change strategies. More information is available at http://www.annapoliscoalition.org/.

IOM Initiative
The initiative explored the implications of the Crossing the Quality Chasm report for the field of mental health and addictive disorders and to develop an agenda for change. A report from the 2002 Santa Fe Summit - Crossing the Quality Chasm: Translating the Institute of Medicine Report for Behavioral Health is available at http://www.acmha.org/summit/summit_2002.cfm. Additional work includes bringing the recommendations to scale. Information on this additional work will be listed in Current Initiatives, above, as it becomes available. External support has been provided by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and the Institute of Medicine.

5 x 5 Initiative
Produce a toolkit for use by consumers and families to advocate for 5 percent of state and county budgets to be set-aside for consumers and family operated programs in the behavioral health system. External support for 6the initiative was provided by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Center for Mental Health Services.