Washington Thriving is a new statewide strategy to improve behavioral health for people from before birth to age 25. Step one of this new initiative is to establish infrastructure, so to start, Washington Thriving is partnering with PBSCI’s CoLab for Community and Behavioral Health (CoLab). Over the next 18 months, this partnership will help advance two of Washington Thriving’s first initiatives (infrastructure and improving the service continuum) while also providing support for collaborative policy development, evaluation, and learning approaches that can be built into the envisioned System of Care over time.
 
Led by Sarah Cusworth Walker, PhD, MS, CoLab will leverage its eighteen years as a contracted partner with the Washington State Health Care Authority to support Washington Thriving. The CoLab team will also bring its practical and tested methods of facilitating collaborative policy and systems development to this partnership, as well as its established relationships with community, service providers, other Washington state universities, and policy partners. CoLab’s track record of integrating community voice and research evidence into actionable practice aligns with the core principles of Washington Thriving.
 
Learn more about this partnership in the Washington Thriving blog.