
Workforce Solutions Jam | Behavioral Health Workforce 2025: Critical Insights and Emerging Challenges

Workforce Solutions Jam | Behavioral Health Workforce 2025: Critical Insights and Emerging Challenges
Tuesday, February 18, 2025 | 10:00 am PT / 11:00 am MT / 12:00 pm CT / 1:00 pm ET
Event Length: One Hour
The behavioral health landscape continues to experience ongoing and multi-pronged complexity, with systemic challenges intersecting workforce needs, technological innovation, and evolving policy developments. This session hosts long-term behavioral health workforce experts in a discussion on current workforce challenges, emerging solutions, and lessons learned in how to maintain a focus and attention to workforce initiates throughout policy shifts.
Join us for a conversation on insights around navigating increasingly complex environments marked by evolving policy frameworks and heightened demand for adaptive, resilient workforce strategies. The ability to anticipate, understand, and proactively respond to these systemic shifts will be paramount for workforce sustainability in 2025 and beyond.
Speaker Information

Jonah C. Cunningham currently serves as President and CEO of the National Association of County Behavioral Health and Developmental Disability Directors (NACBHDD). In this role he proactively advocates for national policies that recognize and support the critical role counties play in caring for people affected by mental illness, addiction, and developmental disabilities. In this capacity he also serves as Executive Director of the National Association for Rural Mental Health.
Prior to joining NACBHDD, Jonah worked at Trust for America’s Health, a public health think tank, where he focused extensively on ways to reduce mortality from substance misuse and suicide. Additionally, he worked as a congressional staffer for several years in the office of Congresswoman Grace F. Napolitano (CA) where he helped to reestablish the Congressional Mental Health Caucus and created a Suicide Prevention Task Force within the Caucus.

Michael Hoge, Ph.D. is Professor Psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine and the Director of Yale Behavioral Health. For four decades at Yale, he has been developing and managing comprehensive systems of behavioral health care and a broad range of clinical, rehabilitative, educational, vocational, outreach, and recovery-oriented services for children, adolescents and adults. Simultaneously, he has worked to develop and evaluate innovative services, including alternatives to hospitalization, crisis response systems, programs for the homeless, and therapeutic schools.
Dr. Hoge, a clinical psychologist, is a nationally recognized expert on behavioral health workforce development. He is a founding member and the Senior Science and Policy Advisor of The Annapolis Coalition on the Behavioral Health Workforce. He is the senior editor or author of three major works by the Coalition: the SAMHSA-funded national Action Plan on Behavioral Health Workforce Development; the Alaskan Core Competencies for Direct Care Workers in Health and Human Services; and the SAMHSA and HRSA-funded Core Competencies for Integrated Behavioral Health and Primary Care. Over the past five years he has developed the Coalition’s intensive Recruitment and Retention Learning Collaboratives in Behavioral health and launched these collaboratives across the nation.
Michael has presented and published widely on behavioral health services and workforce development. He has consulted to the President’s New Freedom Commission on Mental Health and to numerous federal and state agencies, foundations, and provider organizations. He has been a member of two National Academy of Medicine (IOM) Committees that addressed workforce issues and Chaired the Behavioral Health Professional and Technical Advisory Committee of The Joint Commission.

Marcy Melvin, MA is a pivotal executive with over 25 years of experience in behavioral health policy, training, and clinical practice. As a Licensed Professional Counselor in Texas her experience includes providing direct clinical and supervisory services to children, youth, parents, and young adults in various clinical settings including residential, in-home, outpatient, private practice, primary, secondary, and post-secondary locations. Marcy is extremely passionate about advancing health equity and reducing disparities and disproportionality; this has been a culmination of her life’s work in various clinical, organizational and systems settings.

Wendy Morris, RN, MSN, CS, has enjoyed various roles in patient care and leadership across the continuum in behavioral health for more than three decades, including inpatient, outpatient, and home health services as well as state government. She served as commissioner for Kentucky’s Department for Behavioral Health, Developmental and Intellectual Disabilities for several years and is currently a Senior Behavioral Health Advisor at the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors (NASMHPD).
Ms. Morris holds a Master of Science in Community Health Nursing from the University of Kentucky and is credentialed as a Public Health Clinical Nurse Specialist by the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC).

Reyna Taylor, Senior Vice President, Public Policy, National Council for Mental Wellbeing
Ms. Taylor brings extensive experience with federal public policy initiatives to protect access and affordability to her role as Vice President, Policy & Advocacy at the National Council for Mental Wellbeing where she leads public policy and government affairs activities, supervises legislative matters and guides overall public policy strategy. With nearly two decades of specialty pharmaceutical and medical device experience, Ms. Taylor has a wide range of knowledge on public policy issues, including Medicare, Medicaid and commercial management of managed care organizations, hospitals, pharmacies and mental health centers. She holds a Bachelor of Science in neuroscience from Bates College and earned a Master of Science in biotechnology and Master of Business Administration from Johns Hopkins University. Currently, she serves on the board of the Mental Health Liaison Group.
Moderator

Josh Rubin, MPP
Vice President, Client Solutions
Health Management Associates
The Workforce Solutions Jam is a monthly webinar to build national momentum and encourage collaboration through the Center for Workforce Solutions.
The Workforce Solutions Jam will provide an opportunity to:
- Learn innovative new practices
- Stay informed about ongoing efforts
- Engage with subject matter experts
- Hear about new legislation and/or federal workforce efforts
- Take action!
Background
The National Council for Mental Wellbeing launched the Center for Workforce Solutions in 2023 in partnership with The College for Behavioral Health Leadership and Health Management Associates. The partnership is leveraging Collective Impact to address the workforce crisis, and using a cross-sector approach to address the long-standing challenges for expanding and solidifying the behavioral health workforce.