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Annual Massachusetts Department of Mental Health Research Centers of Excellence Conference

How Stakeholder-Engaged Research Can Change Care Provision and Policy:
An Inside Look at the Centers of Excellence

2021 Virtual Conference
UMass Medical School’s Implementation Science & Practice Advances Research Center (iSPARC) & Massachusetts General Hospital’s Center of Excellence for Psychosocial and Systemic Research
Monday, June 14th, 2021

Overall Goal

DMH funded two new centers of research excellence in October 2018. This is the first research conference for those two centers. The goal of this conference is for DMH clients, their family members, DMH staff, and providers to learn more about the work these two centers are doing, and for these centers to learn about how their research can best support DMH, its mission, and the people served by DMH. The conference will emphasize stakeholder engaged research, including the importance of engaging persons living with mental health challenges, their family members, and the providers and staff who serve them in all phases of the research process.

Recording and Presentation slides (pdf format) are available.

Conference Agenda and Presentation Slides

Time Topic Format Center(s) Presenter
12:30pm - 12:40pm Welcome/Virtual Housekeeping → Presentation iSPARC Maryann Davis, Director of iSPARC
12:40pm – 12:50pm Commissioner’s Remarks Presentation   Brooke Doyle, Commissioner of DMH
12:50pm – 1:20pm Introduction to the Centers of Excellence → Presentation iSPARC and MGH COE
  • Maryann Davis, Director of iSPARC
  • Cori Cather, Director of MGH COE
1:20pm – 2:00pm Community Health Worker Support Improves Provision of Effective Treatment and Smoking Cessation Success →  Presentation MGH COE Eden Evins, Director of MGH Center for Addiction Medicine; Professor of Psychiatry, MGH/Harvard Medical School
2:00pm – 2:10pm Break      
2:10pm – 2:50pm Implementation Science: What Is It and What Does It Do For Me? → Presentations iSPARC and BU
  • Marianne Farkas, Professor (Clinical); Director of Training, Dissemination & TA;  BU Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation
  • Gina Vincent, Associate Professor, UMMS
2:50pm – 3:30pm Engaging Persons with Lived Experience: Successes and Challenges from the Peer Perspective → Panel Presentation MGH COE and
iSPARC
  • Anne Whitman, Senior Peer Consultant, MGH
  • Cynthia Piltch, Community Research Consultant, MGH
3:30pm – 3:40pm Break      
3:40pm – 4:20pm

Learning from the Challenges of COVID-19

 Brief
presentations		 MGH COE and
iSPARC
  • Abigail Wright, Instructor, MGH
  • Oliver Freudenreich, Associate Professor, MGH
  • Daphne Holt, Associate Professor, MGH
  • Kathryn Sabella, Instructor, iSPARC
  • Rachael Perrault, Project Director II, iSPARC
4:20pm – 4:30pm Wrap up Presentation MGH COE and
iSPARC
  • Cori Cather, Director of MGH COE
  • Maryann Davis, Director of iSPARC

COE Conference Agenda 2021 (pdf format)