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Chacku (he/him) has been with the Center for Practice Innovations since 2019 and currently works as a Principal Investigator/Project Director for the SAMHSA Healthy Transitions Grant at OnTrackNY.
He has accumulated over thirty-five years of experience in behavioral health systems transformation in a variety of roles, always centering lived experience and human rights. He has held important roles in youth leadership and community organizing/advocacy, advancing grassroots peer support models, and worked as a psychiatric rehabilitation practitioner/trainer in community mental health centers and residential programs licensed and certified by the Office of Mental Health.
He served in executive leadership roles such as the CEO for the MHA of Rochester; the Director for the NAMI STAR Center, a SAMHSA National Technical Assistance Center; and as the Associate Executive Director for the New York Association of Psychiatric Rehabilitation Services. He has extensive training and technical assistance experience, and through NYAPRS, was an implementation partner for the New York State Center of Excellence for the Integration of Care (CEIC), the SAMHSA Northeast Addiction Technology Transfer Network, the SAMHSA Recovery to Practice Resource Center for Behavioral Health Professionals and the SAMHSA Bringing Recovery Supports To Scale Technical Assistance Center Strategy (BRSS-TACS).
Chacku is experienced in state policy advocacy and leadership by leading a statewide Employment Campaign, became the Chair for the Most Integrated Settings Coordinating Council’s Employment Data Integration Team, was appointed to the New York State Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services (OASAS) Credentialing Board and the New York State Integrated Block Grant Committee. He is a former member of the Commission that oversees the United States Psychiatric Rehabilitation Association (USPRA) Certification Program for Certified Psychiatric Rehabilitation Practitioners (CPRP).
He is a founding board member and current President of Friends of Recovery – New York, a statewide coalition of people in recovery from addiction, board member with Hearing Voices Network – USA, and ex-officio board member for National Association for Rights Protection and Advocacy (NARPA). Chacku is also appointed by the Governor to the NYS Behavioral Health Services Advisory Committee (BHSAC) and the appointed Co-Chair for the Equity Committee of the BHSAC. He is also appointed by the New York State Senate to the Daniel’s Law Taskforce. Chacku also volunteers on the weekends as a Hearing Voices Network group facilitator at the Rochester Psychiatric Center Forensics Unit.
Chacku brings a strong mix of experiences developing trauma-informed, person-centered, and culturally congruent behavioral health infrastructure with local communities, community-based organizations, large healthcare systems, as well as multiple state, territory, and tribal governments across the country. Chacku is regularly invited to train and consult across the United States and with SAMHSA in a number of critical areas, including and most recently, on national guidelines for crisis systems and response.
Please join us in welcoming Mr. Mathai to this important position.
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