Mid-America MHTTC Newsletter
MAY 2021
Greetings,

Your Mid-America MHTTC is busy as ever delivering trainings on professional well-being, integrated care, school mental health, and serious mental illness. When we're not hosting free webinars that are open to the public, we're providing targeted and intensive technical assistance to clinics, schools and school districts, and state entities in our region.

Still, we have many excellent webinars and other opportunities on the horizon. Read on to learn about those (and mark your calendars), as well as briefs on past events.

Please reach out if you have any questions.

Take care,

The Team at the Mid-America MHTTC
UPCOMING EVENTS & TRAINING
We hope to connect with you through one of our free events!
Mental Health Kansas City Conference
(Metro Council of Community Behavioral Health Centers)
May 6-7 | ONLINE
Northwest AEA Training of Trainers on the Adult Resilience Curriculum (ARC)
10-11 a.m. May 10 & 24 | ONLINE
Program Limited to Select Participants
Parent Self-Care: Staying Sane when Kids Push Back (ADHDKC)
7-8 p.m. May 10 | ONLINE
School Mental Health 'Always and Now' Learning Series (MHTTC Network)
12-1:30 p.m. May 11 | ONLINE
Serious Mental Illness: Motivational Interviewing TA
May 12, 13 & 19 | ONLINE
Program Limited to Select Participants
Well-Being Wednesdays: Rejuvenating Through Relaxation, Recreation, and Routines
12-12:30 p.m. May 12 | ONLINE
Supporting School Mental Health During a Pandemic Professional Learning Community
1-2:30 p.m. May 19 | ONLINE
Family Peer Support: How Families Can Foster Independence: Housing
12-1 p.m. May 20 | ONLINE
Sustaining Pediatric Integrated Primary Care During a Pandemic
12-1 p.m. May 21 | ONLINE
School Mental Health 'Always and Now' Learning Series (MHTTC Network)
12-1:30 p.m. May 25 | ONLINE
Professional Well-Being (Coming Home to Primary Care Series)
12-1 p.m. May 28 | ONLINE
HOLIDAYS & COMMEMORATIONS
Mental Health Awareness Month - May 1-31
Asian Pacific American Heritage Month - May 1-31
Cinco de Mayo - May 5
Children’s Mental Health Awareness Day - May 7
National Women's Health Week - May 9-15
International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia - May 17
World Day for Cultural Dialogue and Development - May 21
Memorial Day - May 31
NEWS & UPDATES
Professional well-being program updates
Burnout continues to permeate the health care profession, especially since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. To respond to these emergent needs, the Mid-America MHTTC launched a new programming area around professional well-being. See below for updates from this program area launched earlier this year.
Mental Health Awareness Month: 30-Day Challenge
May is Mental Health Awareness Month. To celebrate, our Center is hosting its first-ever 30-day burnout-busting challenge. Follow along on our Twitter and Facebook pages, where we post daily challenges intended to help you improve your well-being — especially as it pertains to your work life. Share your journey with us using the hashtag #mhttcbyebyeburnout to be entered to win a physical copy of our Adult Resilience Curriculum (ARC) workbook, containing many more activities to help you focus on your well-being.
Burnout Busters: The Podcast
We released three new episodes of Burnout Busters: The Podcast over the month of April. In this podcast, Drs. Jordan Thayer and Hannah West help providers identify their values, begin their mindfulness journey, and engage in activities that reinforce the principles of well-being. You can stream the following episodes now on your favorite podcast platform, or click the links below to listen via Anchor:

  • Be here now: Integrating mindfulness into your daily life with ease | Listen now!
  • Calibrating your life compass: How values can orient you toward well-being | Listen now!
  • When self-care isn't enough: Why we need organizations to tackle well-being | Listen now!
Supporting Professional Well-Being in Health Care: An HHS Region 7 Town Hall Event
Supporting Professional Well-Being in Health Care: An HHS Region 7 Town Hall Event went live on April 30. Our panel provided information on the current context of professional well-being within health care and featured several regional experts focusing on supporting organizational well-being within their health care systems. This event was live-tweeted. You can learn more about this timely discussion and watch the town hall here.
Well-Being Wednesdays: Taking Care of Educators Who Take Care of Kids
The final two webinars in the series Well-Being Wednesdays: Taking Care of Educators Who Take Care of Kids air May 12 and June 9. On May 12, join us from 12-12:30 p.m. CT for Rejuvenating Through Relaxation, Recreation, and Routines, in which attendees will learn about the Three R’s and identify ways in which they can incorporate these vital and flexible strategies and practices into their daily lives. Register for the May 12 webinar here. Learn more about the June webinar using the link above.
ICYMI: Well-Being Wednesdays: Feeling Good Physically Through Nutrition, Movement, and Sleep
To view the webinar, watch the video embedded above or click here.
Final Coming Home to Primary Care webinar to cover professional well-being
The last webinar in our Coming Home to Primary Care: Pediatric Integrated Health series is around the corner. In our May 28 webinar, Professional Well-Being, join us to learn strategies for fostering a strong sense of individual well-being.

Read on for details about May's webinar. You can register for this webinar here.

Overview:

Health care workers — including but not limited to physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, nurses, behavioral health providers, and administrators — experience exceptional levels of burnout and compassion fatigue as the result of packed schedules, emotional demand, and moral injury — and these stressors have only been amplified since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this webinar, speakers will describe how stress affects us psychologically and biologically. Speakers will share research-backed strategies for overcoming barriers to well-being. These strategies are rooted in the Adult Resilience Curriculum, or ARC, a 10-module model for implementing well-being at both the individual and organizational level. The model is rooted in adult positive psychology and organizational well-being theories and has been adapted to apply across medical and educational settings.

Learning Objectives:

  • Discuss the psychological and biological effects of stress related to well-being.
  • Explain how Adult Resilience Curriculum (ARC) for Health Professionals can be implemented at the individual and institutional levels to help overcome barriers to well-being.
  • Articulate how the Mid-America Mental Health Technology Transfer Center (MHTTC) resources can be utilized to assist with an individual’s professional well-being.
Speakers:
Britt Liebsack, PhD, LP
Faculty Trainer, Mid-America MHTTC
Munroe-Meyer Institute
University of Nebraska Medical Center
Christian Klepper, PsyD, LP
Faculty Trainer, Mid-America MHTTC
Munroe-Meyer Institute
University of Nebraska Medical Center
To view last month's webinar, Organizational Well-Being, watch the video embedded below or click here.
Ohio State trainers facilitate workshop on CBT for individuals experiencing first-episode psychosis
On April 27, our serious mental illness program collaborated with Drs. Nick Breitborde and Heather Wastler of Ohio State University to facilitate the Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) for First Episode Psychosis workshop.

This full-day workshop provided an overview of cognitive behavioral therapy and how it can be utilized in sessions with the client using the tools and techniques associated with the therapeutic intervention. The 12 participants were from various first-episode psychosis programs throughout the Mid-America region and ranged in positions from supportive employment to psychiatrists.

"The participants were very engaged and were provided with a variety of resources based on the knowledge of the presenters and their first-hand experience," says Marla Smith, a serious mental illness program trainer for the Mid-America MHTTC.

First-episode psychosis programs are designed for people with serious mental illness that are experiencing psychosis for the first time. The programs provide them with an integrative program that can include family support and education, case management, therapy, and coordination with primary care, among other areas.

"First-episode psychosis programs are essential as they can provide an early intervention that, in many cases, assist the client with the resources and supports that they need to create a strong foundation for recovery and a full life," Smith says.
Final Family Peer Support: An Emerging Workforce webinar airs May 20
The final webinar in our Family Peer Support: An Emerging Workforce series airs 12-1 p.m. Thursday, May 20.

In this webinar, How Families Can Foster Independence: Housing, we will demonstrate ways in which family peer support empowers families to support their loved one’s desire to live independently. In particular, participants will learn how recipients of family peer support:

  • Learn to engage their loved ones in conversations about housing and independent living;
  • Learn to support their loved ones with finding housing and housing supports;
  • Learn to help their loved ones be successful with independent living.

Click here to register for the webinar. To view last month's webinar, How Families Can Foster Independence: Employment, watch the video embedded below or click here.
STAFF SPOTLIGHT
Jennifer Burt, PhD, LP
Jennifer Burt, PhD, LP, is a faculty trainer for the Mid-America MHTTC's integrated care program. She is also a licensed psychologist and an associate professor in the Department of Psychology at the Munroe-Meyer Institute for Genetics and Rehabilitation at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.

Dr. Burt provides clinical services in an integrated behavioral health clinic at Children’s Physicians Dundee in Omaha. Her clinical and research interests focus on the integration of behavioral health into primary care and school settings, acceptance commitment therapy, screening in pediatric settings, and violence prevention and trauma. Dr. Burt also has an active interest in prevention and promoting parental knowledge of developmental milestones and positive parenting practices.

Currently, Dr. Burt is working with the MHTTC Network and National Center for School Mental Health to develop a national training curriculum for infant mental health in integrated care. She is also working with other Mid-America MHTTC trainers in partnership with Kansas AETNA to provide trainings on the social determinants of health, specifically in the areas of nutrition, housing, and employment.

When she isn't working, Dr. Burt keeps busy with her three children.

"The best therapy for me after a long day is to spend time with my family," she says. "My kids are super busy in athletics, so I love watching them compete on the basketball court and baseball or soccer fields. On the nights we are not running to activities, I love to cook and enjoy a family dinner together."
Each newsletter we shed light on an exceptional contributor to Mid-America MHTTC's mission.
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Mid-America MHTTC | 402.552.7697 | MHTTCnetwork.org/midamerica
The Mid-America Mental Health Technology Transfer Center is a SAMHSA-funded program at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. The Mid-America MHTTC provides training in evidence-based practices to the four-state area of Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska and Kansas. 
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