The 2022 Washington State Mental Health Summit held this month featured four presentations by department faculty: Anna Ratzliff, MD, PhD, spoke about the ongoing work to develop a Bachelor-level Behavioral Health Support Specialist training program, Nadejda Bespalova, MD, and Amritha Bhat, MBBS, MD, MPH, presented on the need behind expanding telepsychiatry for substance use through the Perinatal Psychiatry Consultation Line (PCL), Robert Hilt, MD, talked about the successful PAL consultation line and expanding the PALS in Schools program, and Maria Monroe-DeVita, PhD, gave an update on an initiative presented at the 2018 Summit on a family support program for youth and young adults experiencing a first episode of psychosis.

Over 150 people including individuals with lived experience, legislators, community stakeholders, faculty and staff attended the Summit in-person at the HUB Ballroom on the UW campus and several hundred joined virtually as well. The Summit was organized by the UW Medicine Behavioral Health Institute at Harborview Medical Center and by Chad’s Legacy Project. Jürgen Unützer, MD, MPH, MA, opened the meeting with welcoming comments.