2024 Annual Meeting Highlights
The 18th International IPS Learning Community Annual Meeting was held on May 29 – 30 (half-day), 2024, at the Hilton Chicago.
This hotel was located in heart of the city overlooking Grant Park (the Bean) and Lake Michigan. You will be just a 12 minute walk from the Art Institute of Chicago, a 18 minute walk to the Shedd Aquarium, a 30 minute walk (or 15 minute train ride) to shop on the Magnificent Mile, and a half hour train ride to The Museum of Science and Industry.
We had participation from the five stakeholder groups: mental health leader, vocational rehabilitation leader, IPS trainer, family leader, and peer leader. The conference meeting included keynote speakers and discussion groups. Examples of topic areas included personal recovery stories; equity, diversity and inclusion for IPS; learning communities: new research findings, mental health and vocational rehabilitation partnerships for IPS; and international updates.
Meet our 2024 Speakers!
Doron Amsalem, MD, is a Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist and an Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at Columbia Psychiatry and New York State Psychiatric Institute. Dr. Amsalem’s research focus is stigma reduction, specifically in the areas of psychosis and depression among young adults and adolescents. Currently, he investigates the efficacy of brief social contact-based videos in reducing stigma and enhancing treatment engagement in youth using. These social contact-based videos consist of short testimonials from people living with mental health conditions, sharing their stories and creating change among the viewers through identification and emotional engagement. Dr. Amsalem is interested in developing and implementing these brief videos with the aim of guiding at-risk youth into treatment earlier in the course of mental illness.
Lisa Dixon, M.D., M.P.H. is the Edna L Edison Professor of Psychiatry at the Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons and New York-Presbyterian Hospital. She directs the Division of Behavioral Health Services and Policy Research within the Department of Psychiatry. Dr. Dixon is an internationally recognized health services researcher with over 25 years of continuous funding from the National Institute of Mental Health and the VA. She oversees activities for the New York State Office of Mental Health in implementing evidenced based practices for persons diagnosed with serious mental illness. Dr. Dixon’s grants have focused on improving the quality of care for individuals with serious mental disorders. Dr. Dixon’s work has joined individuals engaged in self-help, outpatient psychiatric care, as well as clinicians and policy makers in collaborative research endeavors. Dr. Dixon assumed the role of editor in chief of the journal, Psychiatric Services in January 2017. She has published more than 350 articles in peer-reviewed journals and has received numerous awards including the 2009 American Psychiatric Association Health Services Senior Scholar Award and the Wayne Fenton Award for Exceptional Clinical Care. In 2016, the Mental Health Section of the American Public Health Association recognized her work with the Carl A. Taube Award. She is currently a member of the Board of Directors for the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
Robert E. Drake, M.D., Ph.D. is Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons and a Vice President at the Westat Corporation. He is an active clinician and has studied psychiatric rehabilitation for over 50 years. Along with Deborah Becker, he developed the Individual Placement and Support (IPS) model of supported employment, the IPS Employment Center, and the International IPS Learning Community. He has published more than 700 articles and books on psychiatric rehabilitation.
Dr. Katherine (Kate) Elkington, PhD, is a NYS licensed clinical psychologist and a Professor of Medical Psychology, in Psychiatry at Columbia University, a Research Scientist at the New York State Psychiatric Institute, and director of the Center for Behavioral Health and Youth Justice, within the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Dr. Elkington has over 15 years of research experience in criminal and juvenile legal settings, with expertise in documenting and understanding correlates of mental illness, substance use/disorders and HIV risk behaviors in highly vulnerable youth and using these data to (i) develop and implement prevention programming, and (ii) understand and address multi-level barriers to treatment access for legal system-involved individuals. Most recently, her work has focused on the development and evaluation of implementation interventions to increase detection of behavioral health problems, including suicide risk, and to improve access to behavioral health and health services, of which a centerpiece is building cross-system relationships between justice/legal and community treatment systems. To that end, Dr. Elkington is currently the lead investigator on several large-scale, multi-site, NIH-funded implementation science research projects, and has served as the Principal Investigator or co-I on numerous NIH- and CDC-funded awards.
Kavita Singh Gilchrist (she/her) is a Co-Founder and the Managing Partner of Racial Equity Partners (REP). Since 2020, REP has consulted with 30 different organizations, helping them build pathways to advance racial equity, diversity and inclusion. REP’s services include organizational assessments, professional development trainings, strategic and action planning and coaching. REP’s team has worked across multiple sectors including housing and homelessness, K-12 education and parent associations, public and mental health and for profit companies. REP’s work emphasizes incorporating lived experience and trauma-informed care.
Franco Mascayano, PhD, Director of Employment Research, is a psychiatric epidemiologist whose research focuses on understanding social and contextual determinants of mental health, and developing and assessing evidence-based practices for people with psychiatric disabilities.
Susan R. McGurk, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist and neuropsychologist, Professor of Occupational Therapy, and a researcher at the Center of Psychiatric Rehabilitation at Boston University. Her research addresses the role of cognitive impairments in employment, academic pursuits, and independent living in persons with serious psychiatric illnesses, and has developed, tested, and implemented the “Thinking Skills for Work Program” to address cognitive obstacles to successful employment (SR McGurk, KT Mueser (2020). Cognitive Remediation for Successful Employment and Psychiatric Recovery: The Thinking Skills for Work Program. Guilford Publications, London).