Archived Webinars

This session discusses the significance of self-care, levels of functioning, and the meaning of “effective helpers” in the mental health field. We provide tips on how to prevent compassion fatigue and build resiliency by using self-care as a tool.

Meet the Trainers

Ragini Lal is a dedicated, compassionate, solution-driven mental health advocate and humanitarian for underserved populations. She is currently the Community Engagement Manager at NAMI California, with experience in qualitative and quantitative research, cultural competency and responsiveness trainings, family and peer support trainings, report writing, and executing mental health equity and advocacy through large events. She received a Bachelor’s in Psychology at California State University, Sacramento, and is currently pursuing a Master’s in Mental Health Clinical Counseling – Marriage, Family, and Children program to obtain a License in Professional Clinical Counseling (LPC- CA). Ragini is certified in Mental Health First Aid for Youth and Adults, Psychological First Aid, Cultural and Linguistic Competence Certification, and Peer & Family Support Specialist. Formerly a Behavior Health Therapist at Genesis Behavior Center and Peer Counselor at California State University, Sacramento, Ragini has direct clinical experience with diverse communities, families, and children with various mental health conditions. Ragini was also a Crisis Peer Counselor at California Coalition for Youth, specifically working with peer youth and family members in need of immediate crisis counseling. Her long-term goal is to earn a PhD in Clinical Psychology, specializing in holistic healing to provide whole health care for diverse populations world-wide. Her work’s devotion is to empower others to believe in their personal strengths in an all-inclusive clinical healing journey—moreover, to increase systemic changes for more sustainable access to care through education and social advocacy.

Angela Brand is the Vice President of Strategic Engagement at NAMI California. She has extensive experience in mental health programming focused on community engagement, advocacy, and training, having worked in both public and private sectors with consumers and family members. Prior to joining NAMI California, she worked for the Mental Health Services Oversight and Accountability Commission and United Advocates for Children and Families. She is passionate about peer- and family-led system transformation and the inclusion of individuals in all aspects and levels of decision making. Her areas of special interest include advocacy, family and peer support, youth mental health and leadership development, prevention, early intervention, and education. Her work is driven by a passion to develop systems that improve access to care through community-based and recovery-focused programs that are reflective of and responsive to the needs of diverse populations. Ms. Brand holds a degree in Sociology from Arizona State University.

This session will cover the general code of ethics for mental health professionals, HIPAA rights, and the importance of medical records and mandated reporting. We will discuss in depth of the general professional ethics and boundaries as well as provide information of the laws for protection of both the professionals and clients.

Meet the Trainers

Ragini Lal is a dedicated, compassionate, solution-driven mental health advocate and humanitarian for underserved populations. She is currently the Community Engagement Manager at NAMI California, with experience in qualitative and quantitative research, cultural competency and responsiveness trainings, family and peer support trainings, report writing, and executing mental health equity and advocacy through large events. She received a Bachelor’s in Psychology at California State University, Sacramento, and is currently pursuing a Master’s in Mental Health Clinical Counseling – Marriage, Family, and Children program to obtain a License in Professional Clinical Counseling (LPC- CA). Ragini is certified in Mental Health First Aid for Youth and Adults, Psychological First Aid, Cultural and Linguistic Competence Certification, and Peer & Family Support Specialist. Formerly a Behavior Health Therapist at Genesis Behavior Center and Peer Counselor at California State University, Sacramento, Ragini has direct clinical experience with diverse communities, families, and children with various mental health conditions. Ragini was also a Crisis Peer Counselor at California Coalition for Youth, specifically working with peer youth and family members in need of immediate crisis counseling. Her long-term goal is to earn a PhD in Clinical Psychology, specializing in holistic healing to provide whole health care for diverse populations world-wide. Her work’s devotion is to empower others to believe in their personal strengths in an all-inclusive clinical healing journey—moreover, to increase systemic changes for more sustainable access to care through education and social advocacy.

Angela Brand is the Vice President of Strategic Engagement at NAMI California. She has extensive experience in mental health programming focused on community engagement, advocacy, and training, having worked in both public and private sectors with consumers and family members. Prior to joining NAMI California, she worked for the Mental Health Services Oversight and Accountability Commission and United Advocates for Children and Families. She is passionate about peer- and family-led system transformation and the inclusion of individuals in all aspects and levels of decision making. Her areas of special interest include advocacy, family and peer support, youth mental health and leadership development, prevention, early intervention, and education. Her work is driven by a passion to develop systems that improve access to care through community-based and recovery-focused programs that are reflective of and responsive to the needs of diverse populations. Ms. Brand holds a degree in Sociology from Arizona State University.

Join us for a three-session series about mobile crisis outreach teams (MCOT) with CARE TA Center partner RI International. Building on the first presentation regarding Mobile Crisis Units 101, which provided an overview of MCOT models, this second presentation will explore the ways to operationalize MCOT services. Audiences will learn the staffing models, training needs, and infrastructure necessary to deploy Mobile Crisis Outreach Teams utilizing SAMSHA’s National Guidelines for Behavioral Health Crisis Care.

Meet the Presenter

Jamie Sellar, MA, LPC, is a behavioral health executive with 25 years of successful experience in running crisis programs in multiple states. These programs have included both inpatient, sub-acute, residential, mobile crisis outreach teams, hospital rapid response, and mental health urgent care centers. Currently, Jamie specializes in crisis system development and operational management. In his current role as Chief Strategy Officer at RI International, he consults both nationally and internationally on topics such as crisis system optimization, peer use in the workforce and program design. Jamie has a long history of training professionals and paraprofessionals on practical client engagement strategies. A licensed clinician, Jamie strongly believes that the rapport between caregivers and those in need is a primary driver of success in crisis work.

Many counties are preparing to establish Assisted Outpatient Treatment (AOT). Join us to learn about the experiences of existing AOT programs with a panel discussion among experienced California counties. Representatives from Orange County, Los Angeles County, Nevada County, and Ventura County will share their expertise with AOT program implementation, including their successes, barriers, and lessons learned. Following the panel presentation, panelists will answer questions from the audience.

This webinar reviews the role of Mobile Crisis Outreach Teams (MCOT) in crisis care systems. The presentation covers multiple models being used throughout the United States, with a deeper dive into the model endorsed by SAMSHA’s National Behavioral Health Crisis Care Guidelines. Also covered is the importance of a street-level response to crisis care that diverts away from uniformed law enforcement officers as the caregiver of last resort. The intended audience for this presentation includes behavioral health administrators, emergency response workers, and front-line behavioral health workers, including social workers, psychologists, and peer specialists.

Meet the Presenter

Jamie Sellar, MA, LPC, is a behavioral health executive with 25 years of successful experience in running crisis programs in multiple states. These programs have included both inpatient, sub-acute, residential, mobile crisis outreach teams, hospital rapid response, and mental health urgent care centers. Currently, Jamie specializes in crisis system development and operational management. In his current role as Chief Strategy Officer at RI International, he consults both nationally and internationally on topics such as crisis system optimization, peer use in the workforce and program design. Jamie has a long history of training professionals and paraprofessionals on practical client engagement strategies. A licensed clinician, Jamie strongly believes that the rapport between caregivers and those in need is a primary driver of success in crisis work.

Join Dr. Heliana Ramirez to discuss how to work with clients to create safety plans that are culturally responsive, strengths-based, and accessible in a COVID-19 world of social distancing and sheltering-in-place orders.

Meet the Trainer

Heliana Ramirez, PhD, LISW, is a licensed clinical social worker with over 20 years of experience. Dr. Ramirez has addressed a variety of clinical issues through individual and group interventions including suicide prevention and postvention, Veteran post-deployment health, psychosocial rehabilitation, LGBTQ minority stress and resilience, trauma-informed care with combat Veterans and survivors of sexual assault, HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis C prevention, and substance abuse harm reduction efforts. Dr. Ramirez’s suicide prevention work with clients includes suicide assessments, developing Safety Plans, crisis intervention, and processing the impacts of suicide attempts through suicide post-ventions following hospitalization. Dr. Ramirez organized the nation’s first multi-state LGBT Veteran Suicide Prevention Conference and produced a documentary about trauma and recovery among LGBT Veterans that addresses suicide from a strengths based and culturally-specific perspective (www.camouflagecloset.com).

This training provides skill building in the evidence-based practice of Suicide Prevention Safety Planning in alignment with the MHSAOC’s Suicide Prevention Strategic plan for California, Striving for Zero: California’s Strategic Plan for Suicide Prevention 2020 to 2025.

Meet the Trainer

Heliana Ramirez, PhD, LISW, is a licensed clinical social worker with over 20 years of experience. Dr. Ramirez has addressed a variety of clinical issues through individual and group interventions including suicide prevention and postvention, Veteran post-deployment health, psychosocial rehabilitation, LGBTQ minority stress and resilience, trauma-informed care with combat Veterans and survivors of sexual assault, HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis C prevention, and substance abuse harm reduction efforts. Dr. Ramirez’s suicide prevention work with clients includes suicide assessments, developing Safety Plans, crisis intervention, and processing the impacts of suicide attempts through suicide post-ventions following hospitalization. Dr. Ramirez organized the nation’s first multi-state LGBT Veteran Suicide Prevention Conference and produced a documentary about trauma and recovery among LGBT Veterans that addresses suicide from a strengths based and culturally-specific perspective (www.camouflagecloset.com).

Seeking Safety is an evidence-based counseling model used to help individuals work through challenges related to trauma and/or substance use. Seeking Safety is a highly flexible model, and it can be used across several populations at any level of care. This presentation will provide an overview of the model’s key principles, interventions, and safe coping skills. All are welcome, and this event is geared in particular toward mental health providers and systems serving populations who are justice-involved, utilizing services across the crisis care continuum, or engaged in outpatient therapy programs.

Meet the Presenter

Gloria B. Osborne, LCSW, is a bilingual and bicultural Spanish-speaking mental health clinician with more than 10 years of experience providing direct care in both inpatient and outpatient mental health settings. She earned her Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and Spanish from Loyola Marymount University and earned a Master of Social Work from the University of Southern California. She currently works as a Psychiatric Social Worker for Kaiser Permanente while also running a virtual private practice called Glow In Therapy. Before joining Kaiser and starting a private practice, she worked for many years in directly operated and County-contracted facilities within Los Angeles County. She is certified in a variety of evidenced based practices, including Seeking Safety, TF-CBT, MAP, IPT, CPP, and she has received national certification in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy from the Academy of Cognitive Therapy. Her professional interests include destigmatizing mental health care, working with the Latinx community, relationships, depression, anxiety, trauma, life transitions, and substance use recovery.

Mind Over Mood is an evidence-based cognitive therapy developed by Dennis Greenberger, Ph.D and Christine A. Padesky, Ph.D. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy illustrates how automatic thoughts lead to emotions which influences our behaviors. Unhelpful automatic thoughts followed by intense emotions can cause depression, anxiety, panic attacks, and other behavioral issues, which affects our daily functioning, relationships with others, and ability to reach our goals and values.

Essentially, different thoughts or interpretations of an event or situation can lead to different moods in the same situation. Since moods or emotions can be distressing and may lead to behavior with consequences (such as isolation, sleep issues, interpersonal problems, avoidance, substance misuse), it is important to identify what you are thinking and to check the accuracy of your thoughts before being reactive. Cognitive therapy provides the opportunity for clients to evaluate their thoughts and situation and develop balanced helpful thoughts and perspective.

Meet the Presenter

Elizabeth Delgadillo, LCSW, is a Senior Clinical Mental Health Social Worker at the Veterans Administration Palo Alto Health Care System in California. She earned her Bachelor of Arts in psychology from University of California at Santa Cruz and earned Master’s degree in Clinical Social Work from Columbia University in New York, New York. Before joining the Veterans Health Care System, she worked at Mount Sinai Hospital as a clinician, treating rescue and recovery workers from the World Trade Center attacks who experienced PTSD. Her professional interests include grief, trauma, life transitions, working with Latino/Latina veterans, women’s issues, and implementation of evidence-based treatments including Cognitive Processing Therapy, Motivational Interviewing, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Interpersonal Psychotherapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, and Seeking Safety.

The skills of good listening and accurate empathy are paramount to Motivational Interviewing. In this webinar session, we will break into small groups to apply MI principles and techniques that strengthen our empathic counseling skills. We will discuss real-life scenarios as related to the fundamental client language cues (change talk and resistance) that allow for ongoing feedback and learning in practice.

Meet the Trainer

Christina Wade, LCSW is certified in Motivational Interviewing/Motivational Enhancement Therapy (MI/MET), with a clinical range of experience including justice-involvement, addiction, suicide prevention, crisis management, and homelessness. Christina earned her MSW from the University of Texas at Austin in 2006 while working concurrently as the Graduate Research Assistant for the Center for Social Work Research. She began her career at the University of California, San Diego, working as the Senior Clinical Social Worker for pre-release services in various California State Prisons. In 2010, she accepted a position working directly for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), specifically San Quentin State Prison. Christina worked a total of 6 years in the California Penal System. While employed at San Quentin, Christina earned her LCSW. In 2012, she transitioned to the Veterans Affairs (VA) Palo Alto Healthcare System as the forensic expert for Addiction Treatment Services, working with Veterans suffering from addiction, PTSD, and mood disorders. In 2014, she transitioned to supervising within emergency services at the University of California (UC) working out of San Francisco General Hospital. Christina left the UC to work as the East Bay Suicide Prevention Coordinator for VA Northern California Healthcare System, before taking on her current role as Sr. Program Analyst for the Rocky Mountain MIRECC for VA Suicide Prevention

All too often, providers struggle with approach when trying to engage clients around meaningful change. This can leave providers feeling frustrated and clients feeling invalidated. Motivational Interviewing (MI) is an evidence-based method of collaborative communication to facilitate meaningful behavior change. In this webinar session, we will review the fundamentals of MI and discuss its core values, strategies, and skills. We will learn how to use MI techniques with clients to enhance engagement, motivation, and action towards reaching targeted behavior goals or changes. Additionally, we will explore the use of MI as it relates to the crisis continuum, especially in the context of behavior de-escalation and suicide prevention.

Meet the Trainer

Christina Wade, LCSW is certified in Motivational Interviewing/Motivational Enhancement Therapy (MI/MET), with a clinical range of experience including justice-involvement, addiction, suicide prevention, crisis management, and homelessness. Christina earned her MSW from the University of Texas at Austin in 2006 while working concurrently as the Graduate Research Assistant for the Center for Social Work Research. She began her career at the University of California, San Diego, working as the Senior Clinical Social Worker for pre-release services in various California State Prisons. In 2010, she accepted a position working directly for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), specifically San Quentin State Prison. Christina worked a total of 6 years in the California Penal System. While employed at San Quentin, Christina earned her LCSW. In 2012, she transitioned to the Veterans Affairs (VA) Palo Alto Healthcare System as the forensic expert for Addiction Treatment Services, working with Veterans suffering from addiction, PTSD, and mood disorders. In 2014, she transitioned to supervising within emergency services at the University of California (UC) working out of San Francisco General Hospital. Christina left the UC to work as the East Bay Suicide Prevention Coordinator for VA Northern California Healthcare System, before taking on her current role as Sr. Program Analyst for the Rocky Mountain MIRECC for VA Suicide Prevention